


Souleaterstuck

by PeregrineWilliams



Category: Homestuck, Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Illustrated, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-10 13:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeregrineWilliams/pseuds/PeregrineWilliams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you were born a WEAPON, and for some reason a COMPLETELY INSANE BLIND GIRL wants to be your MEISTER.</p><p>(Pretty self-explanatory crossover. I don't think you have to read/watch Soul Eater to understand it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

                                   

 

((Skip this if you’ve seen/read Soul Eater. Basically what you need to know is there’s a school that trains weapon and meister pairs to fight the monsters that are produced when a soul is corrupted. A weapon is a person that can shapeshift into, well, a weapon, and a meister is the person that can wield the weapon. The souls of the partners and the wavelengths they emit must be in sync with eachother or the weapon cannot be lifted. The more in sync they are, the lighter and easier it is for the meister to wield the weapon, and the more powerful the weapon is. Good partners are able to resonate their soul wavelengths with eachother and amplify their power. As it is illustrated in the show, a meister is like an electric guitar and a weapon is like an amp.))

 

 

 

“Hey there!”

You hear a sharp, annoying voice call. You keep your eyes fixed on your book, huddled in your dark corner. It was the first day of Assignment Week, where all the ‘gifted’ trolls were rounded up and put in the grand hall of the Empress’ Academy so they could mingle and find a suitable partner. It was the single most dangerous situation you had ever been in in your life and it was your plan to lay low and hope no one talked to you. Then you wouldn’t get a partner, so they would send you back to your hive as a failure at the end of the week and you could continue your miserable life of solitude until they came looking again next sweep.

“Hey you! Mr. Nubby Horns!”

“Leave me alone,” you growl into your paperback.

A pair of combat boots plant themselves on the toes of your sneakers and you look up angrily. The troll girl staring back at you has the most ridiculous pair of bright red glasses you’ve ever seen on the bridge of her nose.

“No!” she says loudly, and her black lips split into a wide, sharp-toothed, sadistic grin. You flinch involuntarily. “What are you, meister or weapon?”

You glare at her and say nothing, until you spot the teal insignia pinned to her chest. You mumble a stream of curses under your breath. She just  _had_  to be a highblood, didn’t she? If this girl decided to report you, you’d be done for.

“… Weapon,” you admit reluctantly, desperately hoping she is the same.

She cackles in triumph and your bloodpusher hits the bottom of your abdomen. “Excellent! I’m a meister!”

You don’t even have time to groan as she grabs you by the hand and yanks you forcibly to your feet. You stumble after in her iron grip, clutching your book.

“Hey! TZ! Over here!”

She abruptly changes direction to arrive at the source of the voice and you find yourself in front of another troll with equally ridiculous brightly-coloured glasses. You rub your temple with your free hand and try to go back the way you came, but her fingers are as strong as your lusus’ pincers around your wrist.

“Sollux!” she bounces up and down in excitement and you roll your eyes. “Did you find anyone?”

The skinny male she was addressing, a goldblood judging by his pin, grins widely and gestures to two girls chatting a little ways off. “Ith incredible TZ! Their weapon formth are ethactly the thame! They’re perfect! They’ve already agreed to be my partnerth.”

She grins widely and congratulates him. You snort a laugh at his lisp. He turns to you, completely unfazed.

“Who’th thith?”

She grips your arm gleefully. “My partner!”

You try to scramble away. “Whoa whoa whoa no. No way. Not a chance. I never agreed to this!”

The goldblood removes his glasses and looks at you carefully. You are shocked to see that they are each a pure bright colour to match his glasses one red, one blue. He stares at you for a full minute while you stand there dumbfounded before replacing his glasses and turning to the girl again.

“Very rough around the edgeth, but that’th quite the thoul he’th got there. Good choithe TZ.”

“What the  _hell_  are you talking about.”

He turns back and offers his hand. “Thorry. I’m Tholluth Captor. Nith to meet you.”

You don’t take it. “Tholluth or Sollux?”

He sighs. “The thecond one.”

You jerk a thumb in the girl’s general direction. “Is this thing your matesprit or something?”

He retracts his hand awkwardly. “Moirail.”

“Oh! Perfect! So you calm her down and  _get her off me._ ”

He raises an eyebrow at her and she shakes her head. “Thorry man, lookth like you’re thuck with her.”

You growl and rub your temple again but he speaks before you can properly retort.

“Hey, it’th Athignment Week. At leatht try her out for a few dayth before you’re that thet on hating her. Everyone elth ith already taken.” He sighs and looks you straight in the eye. “Look man, I can thee your thoul, okay? I can get a thenth of the kind of troll you are behind all the troll PMSing you’re doing right now.  The’th not actually that bad. And, dethpite the fact that you’re both incredibly thtrong-willed, the compatibility of your thoul for herth ith the betht I’ve ever theen apart from mine.”

You snarl at him, angry at how he’s able to see right through you and scared of what else he might have seen. “Why don’t  _you_  be her partner then?”

“Because we’re both meithterth dumbath.”

You grunt in defeat and he smiles at you.

“Come on, we were just about to head over to my weapon’th hive with another pair to get to know eachother a bit.” He gestures and you allow yourself to be dragged along after him by the tealblood attached to your arm. You have absolutely no idea how you’re going to get out of this now.

 

 

If at any point during the previous conversation it had ever occurred to you that ‘this couldn’t get any worse,’ you would have been very very wrong. It turned out that one of Sollux’s weapon partners was the Heiress herself. As you enter the above-water portion of her spectacular hive, which is just at the back of the Academy’s campus itself, you find yourself moving slightly behind and closer to the tealblood in a futile attempt to be less noticeable.

The echoing tiled hall opens to a brightly coloured cosy-looking block furnished with couches, pillows, and a multitude of what look like plush squidbeasts. You wrinkle your nose in distaste, but the tealblood excitedly pulls you over to sit on one of the couches and plops herself down directly across from you, staring intently. She seems to be breathing quite erratically as well and you shift a bit farther away from her.

“What’s your name?” she smiles pleasantly, or tries to at least. With her teeth it comes across as more terrifying than anything else. You sigh and resign yourself to answering her questions.

“Karkat Vantas.”

She giggles. “Nice to meet you. I’m Terezi Pyrope.” She offers her hand. Again, you only grunt and don’t take it.

She retracts and frowns for the first time since you’ve seen her.  For some reason it unsettles you even more than her smile. “Why do you not want to be my partner so badly?”

You look at her closely for a minute before sitting back and crossing your arms. “It’s… It’s not you okay? I don’t want to be anyone’s partner.”

She gives you a quizzical look. “You don’t like fighting?”

“No, I love fighting.”

“Why then?”

“None of your business.”

Her frown turns into a pout. “If you’re going to be my partner then it is my business.”

“I’m not going to be your partner.”

“Yes you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

You sigh in frustration. “Why do you want  _me_  to be your partner so badly?”

She purses her lips. “I’m not as good at sensing souls as Sollux is, but I can get an impression. Yours was the only wavelength I felt in that room that could be compatible with mine. It was also surprisingly one of the strongest, and I need that.”

“Why?”

“My ancestor was the greatest meister the Academy had ever seen before her partner betrayed her. I need to live up to her legacy. …Preferably not that last part though.”

You roll your eyes. “Highbloods and their ancestors. Right.”

She tilts her head curiously and takes a long breath. “What is your blood colour anyways? Your symbol badge is just grey.”

“… None of your business.”

She snorts in frustration. “Fine. Will you tell me what kind of weapon you are at least?”

“Scythe.”

She grins wider than you could have thought physically possible and seems to barely be able to restrain herself from leaping for joy.

“What is it now?”

She holds her face in excitement. “That was the kind of weapon my ancestor used.”

“Oh wonderful. I’m never getting out of this now, am I?”

“Nope.”

You sigh again, sitting back and rubbing your temples. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, having her as a partner? Her status might keep you safe from other people finding out your secret. Then again, there was still the problem of  _her_ finding out your secret. Not to mention the fact that she was the most annoying troll you had ever-

“What were you reading?”

“What?” You look up. She had been staring intently at you the whole time you had been thinking. She was breathing weirdly again too.

“Your book. What is it about? Don’t say ‘none of your business.’ I’ll accept that you don’t want me to know your blood colour – though I  _will_  find out eventually – but you’re going to be my partner whether you like it or not and I want to get to know you.”

You glare at her for a full minute while she smiles ‘pleasantly’ before answering with a sigh. “It’s a romance novel, okay?”

As you feared she giggles at you. “I was right.”

“About what?”

“You. You’re all grumpy Nubby-horns McShouty but on the inside you’re soft and squishy.”

She pokes you in the stomach and you bat her hand away angrily. “Wow, never call me that again ever.”

She giggles more, and you suppose you don’t find it as horribly annoying as you thought you would. It’s better than her cackle at least.

“What about you then? What are the things I need to know about you if I’m going to have to be the one that deals with you?”

She smiles happily. “Hmm… well I like to study Alternian Law and I’d like to become a Legislacerator aside from being a meister. I like FLARPing, roleplaying, drawing, dragons, bright colours, especially red, and… umm… oh and I’m blind in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.”

“Wait what?” you snort. “No you’re not.”

She raises an eyebrow and removes her ridiculous shades. The horribly burned eyes underneath are exactly the same colour. She waves her hand in front of her face mockingly as your mouth drops open in shock.

“But… but you…”

“I can kind of ‘see’ because my lusus taught me how to smell and taste colour. I can sense where things are, but I’m not so good with detail.”

It takes a minute before you notice your mouth is open and you close it quickly. “But… how…?” You try to figure out how to ask this right. “With a… well, a disability like that, how have you avoided being culled? How did you manage to get into the Academy?”

She shrugs and grins none-too modestly. “I took a physical strife test against one of the teachers and aced it. They thought I was valuable and my skill was good enough despite it all, though honestly, it’s an advantage. No one can sneak up on me from behind, try to obstruct my vision, things like that.”

“You’re…” You shut your mouth again quickly.

She raises an eyebrow at you. “I’m what?”

“… Amazing,” you mutter reluctantly.

She looks shocked for a moment before that devilish grin comes back in full force.

“And completely insane,” you add quickly.

The grin just widens. “Want to practice strifing a bit as partners?”

You sigh in defeat. “Fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sollux, his two weapons, and the other pair had been chatting on the other side of the room, but agreed to go outside to practice as well. The fushiablood lead them all out to the edge of her expansive gardens, in an open area complete with targets just behind the school that was usually used for training.

You listen in silently as Terezi asks the other pair about themselves on the walk there. They’re complete weirdos: a dopy-looking indigoblood with smudged facepaint and a stuttering brownblood in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down.

“Oh uh, nice to meet you Terezi. I’m Tavros. This is my meister, Gamzee.” The indigoblood gives a wave and a grin. “He’s been my friend for uh… quite a long time. I’m very grateful to him, since he’s probably the only reason I haven’t been culled yet considering my uh, disability. Luckily it doesn’t affect my weapon form though! Gamzee got in the Academy fine since his blood is so high, and I guess he convinced them to make an exception for me since, uh, for some reason no one else wanted to be his partner.”

You look at the highblood again at this statement and you can’t say you’re surprised.

“Nah bro, I couldn’t do nothing without you. Didn’t want no other partner,” Gamzee says sleepily.

You raise an eyebrow at Terezi and notice the corner of her mouth twitch like she’s trying to suppress a laugh. You’re very surprised, however, when you get to the training area. Gamzee steps forward as Tavros pushes himself out of his seat with his arms. In a flash, a pair of small, deadly-looking, almost club-like scythes connected by a heavy chain drop into Gamzee’s waiting palms. Suddenly his demeanor changes, losing his slouch and lanky awkwardness, now obviously clear that he knows exactly what he’s doing. You aren’t sure if it’s the presence of a weapon in his hands, his soul being connected with Tavros’, or a combination of the two that changes him, but even with the droopy eyelids and dumb grin still on his face, you’re glad he’s on your side.

The highblood twirls the double scythes in his hands expertly and disappears. You look around and see he’s flash-stepped across the field to decapitate one of the target dummies in one swift motion.

“Aww man, would you look at that! I still got it. Miracles,” he chuckles and sways on the spot slightly.

You stare at him, then at Terezi, whose expression mirrors your own.

Sollux’s weapons applaud their skill excitedly. The goldblood steps forward and the girls leap in unison. With another flash, Sollux catches an identically shaped pistol in each hand. He stands there for a moment with his eyes closed, seeming to center himself, trying to strengthen the newly formed bond between the three souls. You think it must be quite a bit more difficult to maintain a connection like that rather than a normal one. You watch, interested, as he grips the pistols and shakes them slightly, testing their weight. He bounces on his heels and twirls them, then lifts them to his face and straightens his arms. Taking careful aim at the nearest circular target, he squeezes one of the triggers. A gold burst of light shoots across the lawnring with a bang. It sears a hole in the target, but far from center.

Sollux drops his arms and closes his eyes for another moment, then shakes himself out and takes aim once more. This time the burst of light is slightly bigger and slightly closer to center. He tries a few shots in rapid succession that all hit, but you can tell he’s bothered by the kickback.

He bites his lip and twirls the guns again, then changes his grip so that he’s holding them upside-down. The kickback now secure against the strongest part of his palm, he aims again and pulls the trigger with his pinky finger. It hits dead center.

The meister throws his hands in the air and does a dorky victory dance.  You roll your eyes but can’t help the hint of a smile as Terezi laughs and applauds him. He starts to practice on the longer range targets as Terezi turns to you, holding out her hands expectantly. You take a deep breath and jump, shifting into your weapon state with a flash. The handle of the scythe is about a head taller than her in length, the curving blade just slightly shorter. You look at her through the eye on the connecter between shaft and blade, watching as her gloved hands wrap around the cool metal. Immediately she pitches forward as you slam into the ground.

She yelps and snatches her hands away, rubbing her strained back. She then grits her teeth and straddles the handle, grips it tightly, and pulls. It doesn’t move an inch.

“What’s going on?” you frown and call out to her, your voice echoing out of the scythe metallically.

You can see her straining. “You’re too… heavy,” she grunts as she yanks again.

“What? No I’m not. I thought you said our souls were compatible.”

“They are!”

You feel a flutter in your metaphorical chest area as tendrils of her soul energy reach out and brush against yours. Your breath hitches, and you can feel your soul harden and shy away from her advances.

“Ith there a problem?” Sollux asks as he wanders over, noticing Terezi struggle.

“I can’t lift him.” She stands up, crossing her arms.

He takes off his glasses. “Try to make the connection again while I watch.”

Terezi sits down in the grass and lays a hand on your blade. You feel her soul brush yours again while it hardens everywhere she touches.

“Hmm.” Sollux squints. “Karkat, let your thoul acthept her connection.”

You focus your mind and try to be receptive. “I… I can’t. It’s involuntary.”

Sollux puts a finger to his lips and nods. “You don’t trutht her. That’th the problem here. Your thoul ith too wary and defenthive to let her in.”

Terezi pouts and looks down at you. “Wow, rude.”

You shift back into a troll to sit beside her. “Well, I’m sorry that my soul is unwilling to let in some insane blind girl that I’ve known for an hour.” You know what the real reason is, of course. Letting her into your soul would give her access to everything. If she pushed hard enough, she could find out anything about you that she wanted. You would never admit it, but you were scared.

She gives you a look that would mean she was glaring at you if she could actually see. “Okay, well, what can I do to make you trust me?”

You blink at her, surprised by the sincerity of the question. “… I don’t know.”

“I want to be your friend, Karkat. Will you let me be your friend?”

You pause again and look at her closely. You’ve… never actually had a friend before. “… Yeah.”

The fluttering feeling in your chest area comes back as her soul reaches out again. Yours shies away. She frowns at you. You shrug apologetically.

Sollux starts to wander back to spar with Gamzee, calling over his shoulder. “You guyth will figure it out. Try thtrifing together or thomething. Develop your teamwork.”

You stand with a sigh and offer Terezi your hand. She takes it after a minute and you help her to her feet. She still looks disappointed.

You walk over to one of the mechanical target dummies and set the level to ‘moderate.’ You return to stand beside Terezi as it warms up. “Come on, let’s beat the crap out of it.”

She smirks and assumes a fighting stance. The bot moves and you go at it together.

Despite being a weapon and someone who is used to fighting with a weapon, hand-to-hand combat is a highly necessary skill, especially in troll society, and you are both very good at it. You however opt to suspend your usual aggressiveness in favour of taking the more passive role that a weapon should for the sake of practice. Might as well start getting used to it.

You pay more attention to her than the machine, trying to read how she moves, find a pattern and style that you can help to compliment. Pretty much entirely legs, she leaps and kicks with perfect accuracy. She is aggressive and headstrong in her blows, always going for maximum damage. She is, however, smart about it, and never lets it land a blow on her. Her frame is small and you can see how it frustrates her, and that with your nigh-indestructible scythe form in her hands she would use it largely to counter so she would be able to get in closer and put up more of the fight that she wants.

You move in closer to her, shifting just your right arm into your scythe blade, and try to do just that. With you deflecting the bot’s heavy blows, she ducks under and around you to target its more vulnerable areas.

The longer you fight, the more your movements start to really sync up and you kind of see what the goldblood was talking about. You really do instinctively work well together.

All too soon, the bot wracks up enough damage point from your blows and shuts down in defeat. The two of you stand there panting until Terezi straightens, grinning, and hold her palm out to you. You snort but return the high-five.

“So.” She turns to you, putting her hands on her hips. “You heard how weapon/meister pairs are supposed to share a hive, right? Something about strengthening bonds and being prepared for emergencies. How far is your hive?”

You groan. You  _had_  forgotten that important detail. “… Pretty far.”

She grins. “Excellent. You can stay in my hive then. It’s pretty close and I have an extra respiteblock.”

“Wonderful.”

“Oh! Do you have a lusus?”

“What? Of course I have a lusus.”

“Okay, he can come too. There will be enough space. I can wait here for a while with Sollux if you wanted to go get your stuff now.”

“Yeah, might as well,” you sigh.

She smiles broadly and waves you off as you begin the trudge back to your hive. With what you’ve seen of this girl so far though, you can’t help a small twinge of excitement at the prospect of fighting alongside her again.


	3. Chapter 3

“Well, here we are!” She turns to you, putting her hands proudly on her hips with a toothy grin.

You stop short and set down your bags, crabdad just behind you. “Terezi,” you say, raising an eyebrow as you look around the massive blue tree trunks, “there’s nothing here.” You didn’t think she was _this_  blind with her other senses.

She only smirks at you and points upwards. Your gaze follows the indicated direction and you gape for a few moments at the massive tree hive complex. The tealblood walks to the nearest trunk and yanks on a rope tied to one of the lower branches. A rope ladder unfurls from the deck above and drops a foot from where you stand.

Your lusus skrees and climbs the trunk behind you instead. Terezi gestures to the ladder and bows mockingly. “After you, dear partner.”

You frown at her and sling the bags over your shoulders as you climb, making sure not to look down as the unsupported rope sways with your weight. For a moment you wonder if she can smell fear too. You feel the ladder still as she starts climbing behind you, anchoring it with her weight. Honestly it’s better than you could have asked for: a hive hidden from view in a forest beside the school, far from other hives and only accessible to those who know about. No one would come snooping here.

You sigh with relief as you finally reach the solid deck, and resolve to suck it up and get used to the height as soon as possible. It’s only then that you notice the multitude of strange stuffed creatures hanging by their necks from the branches around you. You remember she’s insane.

Terezi pulls herself up beside you and moves to open the door. You momentarily glance over your shoulder to see your lusus settling himself down in the tree opposite, then you follow her inside.

She’s definitely insane.

Her main block is a disaster, set up vaguely like a courtroom with plushies, chalk, and various other multicoloured object strewn about with no rhyme or reason you can see. Every inch of the walls were covered with drawings and untidy scrawl depicting mothergrub-knows-what. After being so used to grey and black the sheer amount of colour in one block stuns you for a moment.

“This is yours!” she says excitedly, practically skipping over the mess and flinging open a door on the opposite side. You are then pleasantly surprised by the good-sized respiteblock complete with recouperacoon and a desk for your husktop, free of plushies and only defaced with a few chalk drawings.

“My block is next door but you can come in if you like. The ablution block is on the other side.” You start to unpack as she talks. “We can take turns making meals, unless your lusus is good at that thing. That’s about it really. I can give you the trolltags of everyone you met today. We’ve already made plans to hang out tomorrow too.”

You grunt in consent. “Where’s  _your_ lusus anyways?”

“Oh, she hasn’t hatched yet.”

You stop short while pulling out your movie collection and stare at her. “What?”

She tilts her head slightly, like not having a lusus is the most normal thing in the world and she doesn’t understand your tone. “My lusus’ egg is a few trees away. She hasn’t hatched yet.”

“… You can’t seriously think I’d believe you survived this long, blind, as a wriggler, in the middle of the forest, without a lusus to take care of you.”

She giggles. “Of course not! I wasn’t blind when I was a wriggler.”

“What? But… but still! You’ve been all alone out here your whole life?”

She shrugs. “Guess I have.”

You continue to stare at her, wondering how on Alternia this girl could be so independent and self-sufficient.

She pulls the desk chair over and sits on it backwards, grinning at you. “You keep asking stuff, and I keep answering. It’s my turn now.”

“I-“

“What’s that?” she points to the object currently in your hand.

“… A movie.”

“Can we watch it?”

“… Terezi you’re blind.”

“Rude!” she pouts. “I can  _listen_. And smell the pretty colours.”

“You won’t like my movies.”

“But  _you_  like them. I want to know what you like.”

“Why are you so determined to get to know me?”

“ _Uggghhh Karkaaaaaaat!_ ” she spins around in the desk chair. “Stupid. You’re my  _partneeeeer_. We’re going to be spending pretty much 24/7 together for  _sweeps_  and you live in my hive. It’s going to be a lot easier if we’re friends.”

Holy crap she was right. Why did you ever agree to this. You sigh in resignation. “Fine.”

She smiles. “What’s the movie about?”

“It’s called ‘In which the Alternian saying always a ‘bridesmaid, never a bride’ is examined as a 27-wedding veteran’s dreams of her own flushed union with her superior, troll Edward Burns, are crushed viciously when her moirail, with whom she has a dysfunctional relationship, plans a similar union with him and invites her to be the maid of horror which spawns an internal conflict and troll Katherine Heigl resolves to fight against her moirail for the troll of her dreams, while at the same time dealing with her black feelings for troll James Marsden which eventually turn-“

“Alright I get it!”

* * *

 

Approximately one hour, nine minutes, and thirty-seven seconds after popping the movie in you find the pull of one of your favourite romcoms, the security of the hive, troll Elton John, and the contagious enthusiasm of the troll girl beside you to have influenced you into a severe lapse in judgement. The two of you are currently standing on her couch singing the most horrible rendition of  _Bennie and the Jets_  your universe has ever had the misfortune to experience alongside drunk troll Katherine Heigl and James Marsden.

This is silly.

When the song ends and your sanity returns you sit back down and immediately demand secrecy of the event. She nods but grins somewhat maliciously for the rest of the film.

 

 

You wake up the next evening to her shaking your recouperacoon and yelling about being late for an adventure, to which you yell back with equal intensity to get out of your block while you’re naked. She reminds you of her disability and you flip her off while she leaves cackling.

The strife with your lusus on the way out is quicker than usual thanks to your new partner. You catch yourself thinking of her as your ‘partner’ more and more often now and you’re not sure you’re completely comfortable with that yet.

The two of you meet Sollux, Gamzee, and their weapon partners at the Academy and start on a walk to the outskirts of town, the goldblood filling you in on the way.

“I took a note from the athignment board. Technically we’re not thuppothed to until clath thartth but I athed a prof and he thaid I could if I got another group to go with me. I thought it would be good teamwork practithe.”

“But you’ve got Gamzee, so why are we here?” you grumble. “We can’t fight.”

He shrugs. “TZ wanted to come anywayth.”

“So what am I, an accessory??”

He smirks at you. “Pretty much. You are her weapon after all.”

You have nothing to say to that so you just glare at the two of them while he explains the assignment. Apparently some kid got killed and its lusus didn’t take it very well. You’re supposed to go kill the thing before it destroys another hive complex, since all the drones that have tried to subdue it thus far have been skewered.

You hear a shrill skreeing similar to your crabdad’s, though somehow terrifying in a way you have never heard come from a lusus. The seven of you run for its source, the other weapons transforming mid-sprint.

When you round the corner of an apartment hive and your target comes in sight you can immediately tell that something is very wrong. The lusus is a large arthropod-type, a long body supported by four thin towering legs. The other two legs are folded up to its thorax and it looks as if they’re bladed. Great.

That wasn’t the weird part though. The weird part was that it was glowing, but glowing in a way that seemed to not make itself brighter and instead make everything else darker. There were also what looked like faint wisps of ‘darkness’ writhing all over it just beyond its shell.

A foreleg flashes out and impales a drone, which it rips in two. Before it can go for another one, Sollux fires two shots at its extended leg. It pulls back with a screech and turns on the four of you.

You grab Terezi and get out of its way as Sollux leaps into the air with a flash of red and blue. You didn’t know he could fly. Huh.

You duck behind a mountain of rubble and watch as Gamzee slashes at its walking legs while Sollux hovers around its front firing more shots at a safe distance.

Terezi pulls out of your grip. “Come on! Let’s go help.”

You roll your eyes. “Terezi, neither of us have a usable weapon. You think you can beat that thing in hand-to-hand? Its hands _are_  weapons and it’s three times your height.”

“We just have to be a little more creative. I’ve taken down bigger things.”

“Terezi,  _no._  You’re going to get yourself killed. There’s something weird about this thing…”

You turn back to watch. The bladed legs slam into the ground as Gamzee flash-steps out of the way at the last millisecond. The lusus screeches in frustration as Sollux simultaneously targets its eyes. A walking leg suddenly shoots up and pins the goldblood hard against the wall of a hive. One of his pistols clatters to the ground. Terezi gasps and you throw an arm out to hold her back. Before the lusus can make another move, however, Gamzee leaps up and wraps his chain scythe around its head. It flails about and drops Sollux, stumbling backwards.

Suddenly you see a troll climb up on the pile of rubble it’s heading towards. “Terezi!” Dammit! She slipped past you. “Get back here you freaking moron!”

She waits until the last moment, positioning herself perfectly, then throws herself hard at the large rock on the top of the pile. It lands directly on one of the lusus’ legs and the delicate joint rips right off. The lusus screams and throws Gamzee off, rounding on her in a rage.

You think your bloodpusher actually stops as you and Sollux scream at the same time. It stumbles on its three remaining legs, but it’s still incredibly fast and in the next moment she’s cornered with nothing to defend herself. Your thinkpan stops working.

You run for her.

You leap for her.

You throw yourself in front of her just in time.

The bladed arm slashes upwards where she had just been, where you are now.

You hear her scream and see the bright splash of your own mutant-coloured blood flash before your eyes, before everything goes dark.


	4. Chapter 4

You open your eyes but immediately shut them again against the bright fluorescent light. You’re lying on what feels like a padded tray lined with sopor. There’s a blanket thrown over you and an IV in your arm. Your entire body throbs with a dull pain, which you would assume would be worse but your head feels a bit foggy in the way that’s indicative of painkillers. What even hap-

Craaaaaaaap crap crap crap they saw your blood why are you even still alive? You have to get out of here  _now_.

You are stupid enough to try to sit up, and gasp as pain shoots through your torso. A cool hand places itself on your shoulder and eases you back down. You open your eyes again, slowly this time, and see Terezi sitting next to where you lie. You are as scared of her now as the time you saw the highblood first approach you. You brace for the worst.

“Thank-you.”

Her voice is the quietest you’ve ever heard it. You stare at her and her teal-rimmed eyes and realise she had been crying.

“What hap-“

“After you lost consciousness Gamzee got mad and took that thing down pretty quickly. We got you back to the Academy and our friend in the health unit was able to sew you up.”

Your hand moves gently to your chest and you feel along the large stitches diagonally from left of your collarbone to your right hipbone.

She speaks again, quietly like the first time. “I understand now. I get why you’re so angry and defensive and act like you hate me.” She hugs her shoulders. “And I’m… I’m sorry. This was all my fault . I knew we couldn’t fight and I dragged you along anyways and made a lot of stupid mistakes, and you were the one that got hurt. I’m so sorry Karkat.”

You sigh. “So, what are you going to do with me?”

She looks genuinely surprised. “Uh… you’re going to lie here for a few days and hopefully get better in time to attend classes with me next week?”

You gape at her and she realises, frowning. “You really thought I was going to hand you over to the Empress to be culled?”

“You… you’re  _obsessed_  with law and you’re not the only one who saw-“

“Everyone who saw was your  _friend_ , Karkat. And Kanaya who sewed you up but she promised not to tell anyone and she’s trustworthy. Get over yourself. We’ll keep your secret.” She smiles at you, and this time it’s soft and not full of teeth. “Despite your best efforts, we all like you and we don’t care that you happened to be born with the wrong blood colour.”

You are struck dumb with disbelief at the absurdity of this statement for a few moments. Then the sense of relief and gratitude that washes over you is so immense that you suddenly feel very tired, the adrenaline from your panic dissipating all at once.

She seems to notice this and stands, giving your hand a small squeeze. “Rest now. Kanaya’s probably going to kick me out in a minute anyways. I’ve been here too long.”

Before you can close your hand around hers she pulls away and walks quickly to the door, the stops for a moment and turns back to you. “You wouldn’t know because you haven’t had a class yet, but the first rule of being a weapon is that he should always be prepared to give his life for his meister.” Her usual more-than-slightly-sinister smile comes back. “I know your secret now, and you just almost died protecting me. You are officially my partner whether you like it or not and nothing that happens from now on will ever change that.

“… Thank-you Karkat.”

She slams the door.

 

 

It’s your first day out of the health unit and you are stuck in _Soul Theory_  between teal and gold expert note-takers. You are bored out of your mind. You rest your head on your elbow and pick absent mindedly at the tenser bandages around your chest, which you’ll have to wear for another week at least. They make every move you make uncomfortable but mercifully not painful.

The pretty blueblood professor rambles on and on about how to initiate effective Soul Resonance between partners and you know it’s important and you know you should be trying to get something out of it, but her unnecessarily wordy nonstop monologue with its cheerful tone had annoyed you to the point of apathy twenty minutes ago.

Maybe Sollux will let you borrow his notes later, since Terezi’s are completely illegible to all but her. He’s been calling you ‘KK’ ever since you saved his moirail and somehow became both more friendly and twice as sarcastic.

Gamzee, sitting in front of you so his massive horns don’t block the ‘real’ students, almost reopened your wound with the hug he gave you this morning. He also slipped you a bottle of soda halfway through class. It’s neither exceptionally good nor bad, but at least it makes your craving for the lunch bell lessen a little.

All six of them had visited you every day in the health unit, much to Kanaya’s annoyance. You guess this is what it was like to have friends. You guess you kind of like it.

The moment you had stepped in front of Terezi you knew you had killed yourself. If not from the wound, then from the inevitable culling that came afterwards at the sight of your blood. You had never been prepared for someone to accept you despite your mutation, much less seven somebodies. You still aren’t quite sure what to do with yourself since your life didn’t end.

You suppose you’ll just be content with being Terezi’s partner. She’s really not as intolerable as you thought. You admit that you’re looking forward to after lunch today quite a bit, when you have Combat Class. Now that you don’t have to hide your blood colour from her you’re sure your soul will actually be able to accept hers this time. You may have saved her life, but she didn’t let you die either. You do trust her. Now you want to see what she can do with a real weapon in her hands.

 _Finally_ , the bell rings. Terezi packs up her notes and you groggily get up and follow her out. You try not to, but instinctively stick as close to her as possible whenever you’re at the Academy. You’ve been avoiding them your whole life and crowds of trolls still make you anxious. She looks back at you worriedly and you curse yourself for letting her notice. She doesn’t say anything, however, but grabs you by the hand and leads you through the crowded hallway, out the Academy’s massive front door. The others follow suit, and Terezi pulls you down with her to sit on the steps and unpack her lunch. You let her, but resolve not to make a habit of being lead around by a blind girl.

One of Sollux’s weapons sits beside you as your meisters discuss Soul Resonance on your other side. “Hi Aradia,” you greet mildly. She and Feferi, Sollux’s other weapon, had gotten to know eachother a little bit when they visited you in the health unit. She offers you a biscuit and you take it.

“So, you’re going to train with Terezi as her weapon for the first time today right? Excited?”

You grunt but she smiles. You continue to munch idly on the biscuit. “… What is it like?”

She purses her lips and thinks for a minute. “A meister’s soul is very powerful. As weapons we are supposed to make a connection and encompass their soul, then take that power, purify, focus, and amplify it. The more you do it the better you get at that part. I compress it into an energy burst to shoot out, but I’m not quite sure what you would do as a scythe.

“Having that much power coursing through you feels pretty cool, but the best part is the soul connection. It’s kind of scary at first because you can feel all their emotions and even thoughts if you concentrate hard enough, and you know they can feel yours too. After your connection stabilizes though it feels amazing. It’s the closest you can possibly be to another person and something only weapon and meister pairs can experience. You become a part of them, and they become a part of you. It’s like… like you can never feel lonely again.”

You stare at her, trying to take in this information.

“With Soul Resonance it’s even more intense. We haven’t tried it yet but apparently instead of just focusing your meister’s power, you add your own to it and build off eachother. Instead of just connecting, it’s like your souls become one.”

She sees your your expression and giggles a bit. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you and Terezi will make an amazing team.” She lowers her voice. “It really tore her apart, you know, the day we got you back to the health unit and you wouldn’t wake up. Sollux had to pap her for a long time.”

You blink at her, unsure of what to say. “Actually?”

She nods. “I found out through my connection with Sollux. She blames herself for the whole thing. It might be best to go a bit easier on her for a while.”

“What? it wasn’t her fault that I decided to-“

She waves her hand across her throat and you shut up, remembering the tealblood is sitting close by.

“I’m just saying, you care about eachother, you’re not going to have any problem resonating.”

You sigh. “Yeah, I guess. And since everyone knows about me now.”

“About that, I just wanted to say…” She pauses for a minute. “Well, good job I guess. My blood is the lowest you can possibly be on the hemospectrum, and even though I don’t care, it gets hard sometimes, the way others can look at you and treat you differently just because of the way you were hatched. It’s difficult enough for me, and I can only imagine how much worse it would being off-spectrum. So, good job keeping it up and getting this far. We’re all glad you’re here,” she says, smiling warmly.

You aren’t quite sure what to say to that either. “Uh… thanks, I guess. I didn’t really do much though, just hid from everyone else mostly.”

Her expression is sympathetic and you are aching for a topic change. You ask again about the concept of focusing your meister’s soul energy and she explains in more detail with Feferi’s help until the bell rings.

You head to the back field by the gardens where you trained the first day.The charismatic instructor gives you a few tips, but then turns on the dummies and says you have the class to yourselves, seeing as this is the first one and it’s best to just get used to your partners. As the others transform and head off Terzi turns to you with her game face on. You nod and immediately feel the flutter of her soul against yours. You accept her after only a moments of resistance and make the connection, shifting to your weapon form. She catches it and holds fast. What Aradia had said makes sense now, as you can feel your scythe become both incredibly lightweight and yet strong enough to cut through anything as she feeds it with the power from her soul.

You feel an excitement and elation even stronger than your own and you realise it is your meister’s. You focus her energy more acutely and she holds the giant scythe over her head and twirls it with three fingers like it’s the size of a pencil.

“We did it!” She’s practically bouncing up and down with excitement now and you smile to yourself in your mind.

“Yeah, yeah, stop twirling me around before I get dizzy,” your voice echos metallicly out of the blade.

“Liar. You can’t get dizzy when you’re like this. And I can feel that you’re happy too, just admit it.”

“Never. Now go on and kill something.”

She laughs and swings the scythe back, leaping for thee nearest dummy. It aims a blow at her, which she blocks with the scythe hilt effortlessly and in the same motion swings downwards to hit it on it’s head. Instead, the blade continues down, slicing through the metal dummy like a steak knife through warm butter, and embeds itself all the way up to the hilt in the ground. She blinks her sightless eyes in surprise as the two perfectly cut halves of the dummy spark and collapse to the sides.

“Whoops.”

She spends the next minute working to pull the long blade from the grass but eventually succeeds. “Why didn’t you tell me you were so sharp?” she pants.

“I was never able to cut through anything like that until you came along, it’s your fault.” You feel a flutter of amusement and mentally flip her off. “Now you got my blade covered in dirt.”

She laughs and carries you to the garden to look for a hose. “Well, I’d say we’re off to a pretty good start all things considered.”


	5. Chapter 5

It’s been two months now and you have definitely slipped into a routine, though it’s not boring. It’s been nice not having to be on guard at all times, in the safety of Terezi’s hive, far away from others and with someone else to look out for you.

Figuratively speaking.

First one to wake up makes breakfast and packs lunches out of whatever crabdad manages to catch for you, then wakes the other up. She never barges into your block without warning anymore though, not since the time she caught you halfway into climbing out of your recouperacoon. The look on her face as she got a snoutful of your bare chest with its still very prominent scar was… well, her smile seemed forced for the entire rest of the day.

Classes are alright, not that you entirely pay attention in most of them. Terezi aces everything anyways. You have Soul Theory and Duel Arts with her every day, then you’re split up for Meister Form and Weapon Mechanics respectively. The rest are basics like Alternian and Calculus that you have once a week, then you laze around or do homework with the others at Feferi’s hive while your meister takes an Alternian Law elective and hers takes Advanced Programming. You don’t see why, sincethe two of them are easily the best first-year meisters at the Academy and it’s not like they need any other career options, but you guess they actually enjoy it or something.

Aside from all that, you also get an assignment to go on every week or two. Depending on its estimated difficulty you either just go with Terezi or partner with Sollux and Gamzee like the first time. This is the part most weighing on your mind these days, though you suppose it’s none of your business. It’s just that you’ve heard that assignments previously had been mostly dealing with criminals, rebels, trolls that have gone feral, or skirmishes with aliens off-planet. Every assignment you’ve been on so far, however, has been to eliminate rogue lusi, and every time your blade cuts through their tough white skin you notice the same strange tendrils of darkness reaching for your hilt. There’s definitely something strange going on. Lusi don’t just g rogue in these numbers are you’re more than a little worried for your crabdad.

Your  _serious weirdness detector_  peaks as you arrive at your latest assignment and see not only a spiny mammalian lusus radiating darkness, but also a troll. It’s a young lowblood, around Tavros’ blood colour. His mouth hangs open and his eyes are unfocused and empty. If he wasn’t standing up you’d be sure he was dead.

Terezi senses your uneasiness as she catches your weapon form and turns to her moirail.

“Sollux, do you see what I’m sensing about that boy?”

He nods, readying his pistols. “His soul is weak, but there’s some other incredibly strong presence surrounding it. I have no idea what it is. Gamzee, can you keep him busy while I figure it out? Terezi, take the lusus.”

“You got it bro.” Gamzee is gone in the next second, flashstepping right up to the boy and hitting him in the stomach. He skids back a few feet but otherwise has no reaction.

Terezi runs at the lusus, scythe raised, attention half on Gamzee and the boy.The lusus snaps at her and she jumps back, trying to find a opening, but its front is all claws and teeth and its back is all sharp spines. It swipes at her and she focuses on blocking, losing ground as she tries to come up with a plan.

Suddenly you feel a twinge of surprise over your soul connection. “Terezi? What is it?”

The claws scratch against the hilt and she throws it off. “I can sense another soul, a very strong one. It’s nearby, I’d guess in the hive just above us.”

“Well we can deal with it later. Focus on the thing right in front of you now before you get impaled!”

“I can’t get close enough,” she growls as she leaps back from its muzzle again.

You see Gamzee approach the boy once more, but this time the brownblood raises an arm in his direction. The faint dark tendrils radiating from him move and condense at his outstretched hand.

Sollux looks quickly from the boy to behind you, where Terezi had said she sensed the strong soul. “GZ! Look out!”

Gamzee glances over at him and blinks in confusion but flashsteps away. A mass of black tendrils bursts from the boy’s palm to reach the place Gamzee had just been. They solidify and move on their own, shooting for Gamzee’s new location.

Now you finally realise what they’ve been reminding you of. They’re tentacles.

Terezi’s attention is also on Gamzee as he slices chunks off the writing mass, and you quickly nudge your connection in warning as the lusus comes at you again. She blocks with a frustrated grunt.

“We have to finish this so I can try to help Gamzee.”

“And how are you gong to manage that?”

“We need to resonate.”

“We haven’t managed to do that right before.”

“All the more reason to try when we really need it.”

“…If you say so.”

She plants her feet and readies herself. “Let’s go!”

You feel her soul start to push more energy at yours. You strengthen your connection, and instead of focusing her energy into your weapon form, you add your own to it and send it back at her. She does the same and your wavelengths combine and grow in strength with each pass.The resonance rate increases and the proximity between your souls decrease until the line between them blurs. You force yourself to concentrate on her and her alone, as this is the point where you usually fail. Any slight deviation of your wavelengths and the connection will be broken and you’ll have to start from square one again.

Finally,  you can feel it. You can feel  _her_. Every emotion, every thought that goes through her head you can hear word-for-word: her annoyance at the lusus, her excitement that the resonance got this far, the sense of foreboding she feels from the strong unknown soul. Then, all at once, you see the way she sees. Your own ocular vision is overlaid with the scents and colour picked up by her snout. You feel her surprise as the opposite occurs for her and she struggles to keep her concentration on the resonance link. You both see the vanilla-white lusus charge at you again.

“Now, Karkat!” she yells over the link and you redirect the enormous amount of amassed energy into your blade. It glows red and grows to five times its normal size, the energy coursing down its length like electricity, and you struggle to keep it contained and focused.

Terezi grits her teeth and swings the massive weapon forward with difficulty. The lusus dives at her just as she manages to jump and slam the scythe down on its head. The energy shoots out in a line as it connects with the ground, slicing the lusus in half, along with most of the tentacles going for Gamzee, and leaving a thin deep trench in its wake.

You break the resonance connection and Terezi lands with a stumble, panting as your blade returns to normal size.

“Terezi! Look out!”

She jumps to the side as Sollux fires at the boy’s arm that had been pointed at her, the tentacles shooting out slightly to the side but quickly curving back towards her. Gamzee jumps in and all three of them work at fighting them back.

It quickly becomes apparent however how much ground they’re losing. The tentacles are surrounding you, and one wraps itself around Terezi’s leg and lifts her into the air. As soon as it touches her you get a strange static-like feeling across your link, and when Gamzee cuts her down she falls hard and dazed.

“Terezi! What’s going on?” you yell at her urgently. When she doesn’t respond you shift out of you weapon form, grabbing her and swinging her onto your back, looping her arms around your neck. You dodge the black mass slithering towards you, running for Sollux.

“What’th wrong with her?” he demands, firing behind you.

“I don’t know she just-wha? Kanaya?” you falter mid-sentence as you see the jadeblood walking quickly towards the three of you, an expression on her face like you’ve never seen before.

“Please keep your distance for a moment,” she says firmly. Gamzee backs off and lands beside you as she walks straight at the mass. Before you can cry out a warning, she pulls back a glowing palm and lunges at one of the tentacles. The moment her hand makes contact, a shockwave pulses outwards through the tentacles, disintegrating them completely as it passes, until reaching their source. The brownblood is thrown backwards with its force, spitting blood, and Gamzee wastes no time flashstepping to his side while he’s off balance and lopping off his head.

You stare in shock for a moment, then quickly set Terezi down and kneel in front of her, calling her name. She stays sitting up without your support and her eyes are open, but her expression is blank and unresponsive. You slap her face gently and call her name louder.

“H-huh? What?” She blinks a few times and grabs your hands before you can hit her again, shaking her head. “What happened?”

You sigh in relief and help her up. She wavers slightly so you let her lean on you as you listen to the others.

Sollux is still looking at Kanaya incredulously. “How did you do that? Why did you come help uth? What’th-“

Kanaya’s eyes narrow, looking past him. “I came because I sensed an old familiar soul.”

You follow her gaze to see a troll leap down from the window of one of the surrounding hives and walk nonchalantly over to the beheaded corpse.

“How disappointing,” she says to no one in particular, nudging the body with her foot. “Well, now I know what to do better next time. Never really thought he would last long anyways.” She looks up with a small smile. “Been a long time, Maryam. I suspect we’ll be meeting soon again.” She raises her hand and a dark mass envelops her.

“Serket!” Kanaya runs at her, but in the next instant the dark mass is gone, along with the new troll and the brownblood’s body.

Kanaya looks at the empty space for a moment, then turns with a sigh and walks back past you.

“What-,” Sollux starts again, but Kanaya raises a hand.

“Let us return to the Academy, then I will attempt to explain some things.”

He nods and you loop one of Terezi’s arms over your shoulders and follow them.

“Karkat?” Terezi says uncertainly.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I think so, just kind of dizzy. Karkat, did Kanaya call that troll ‘Serket?’”

“Uh… Yeah, think that was it. Why?”

She frowns. “Serket was the name of the weapon that betrayed my ancestor.”


	6. Chapter 6

You follow Kanaya back to the health unit and Terezi sits on the table to get her scrapes cleaned.

You take a seat and watch them in silence until you can’t help yourself anymore. “Kanaya, how were you able to attack like that?”

Terezi perks up too. “You’re a meister, aren’t you?”

“What?”

Kanaya nods as she takes a cloth to Terezi’s knee. “I am a meister, though I have advanced to the point where I no longer require a weapon to fight.”

You look at her in confusion. “How is that possible?”

She smiles at you. “You’ll start learning in your third sweep. A weapon takes a meister’s soul wavelength and uses it to power them. I have developed the ability to focus and weaponize my own soul wavelength so that I can use it to attack directly.”

Terezi looks fascinated “So you hit that thing with your soul wavelength when you touched it in the form of a concussive force, and since the tentacle things were a product of that troll’s own soul wavelength, when yours came into contact with it it overrode his and they disintegrated.”

You didn’t catch a word of that.

“Correct.” Kanaya wraps her knee and helps her to her feet.

You push the technicalities out of your mind for now. “So why did those things make Terezi faint or whatever when they touched her?”

Kanaya frowns. “Of that part, I am not entirely sure, but I will definitely look into it. How did it feel, Terezi?”

“I didn’t feel a thing. One moment I was fighting and the next Karkat was slapping me in the face, like no time had passed.”

“Interesting…”

Terezi grins suddenly. “Wait, you weren’t always able to fight on your own like that, were you?”

Kanaya blinks. “No, I started out like any other student.”

“And you used to know this Serket very well, did you?”

Kanaya frowns and sighs, as if realising what she was getting at. You look between the two of them blankly.

“My ancestor had a Serket weapon, and weapon and meister abilities are always passed down through blood,” Terezi continues.

“I can see why you’re one of the best students in your sweep. You are most perceptive.” She smiles sadly. “Yes, Vriska Serket was my old weapon partner.”

 

 

You still hate large crowds, though they make you significantly less nervous than before. This is a good thing considering that instead of Terezi, you only have Sollux, Tavros, and Gamzee to use as shields as you follow them through the mass of trolls in the capital city’s center, just down the hill from the Academy. You are here for the most useless idiotic reason you can think of.

Shopping.

Terezi somehow convinced you to go with the promise of doing your homework for the next week, both so you would stop bothering her while she tries to lick every book in the library that might tell her something about those black tentacles, and so you could find something nice (or ‘delicious’ as she puts it) to wear to the mid-semester dance tomorrow.  _Going_  to the dance itself, on the other hand, she convinced you to do with the threat of severe bodily harm.

And now her moirail is dragging you into some fancy clothing shop, placing you in front of a mirror and looking at you critically.

“What,” you say after a minute of silence.

“Take your hood jacket off and thtand up thtraight. I promithed TZ I’d find thomething for you that maketh you actually look dethent.” He puts a thumb to his lips and paces around you. “Have you ever even worn anything that wathn’t baggy and boring?”

You growl but slip the jacket off. “No. I never left my hive unless absolutely necessary and my life kind of depended on me being as discrete as possible if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Thtand up thtraight,” he repeats, flicking you on the back.

“Go suck a bulge.”

His eyes glow and he gives you a slight zap with his psionics. You jump and move to punch him but he makes his eyes glow dangerously again. “The fathter we do thith the fathter you can go home. Do what I thay or I won’t let you copy my thoul theory noteth anymore.”

You give him a death glare but lower your hand and stand tall.

He raises his eyebrows and looks at you with new interest. “You’re actually thlightly taller than TZ, aren’t you? You jutht have horrendouth pothture tho you look thorter.”

“Like I said looking non-threatening is the reason I’ve survived this long.”

“Yeah yeah thpare me the thob thtory drama empreth.”

You’re about to retort when he suddenly stalks off to another part of the shop. You go back to slouching and wander over to Gamzee by the fitting blocks. You figure Sollux knows this place like the back of his hand, considering he wears his stupid suits every day to school for no dicernible reason other than his bipolar vanity. ‘I hate myself but I’m the greatest thing ever bluh bluh bluh.’

“Hey there my brother. How goes the prettyfication?”

“Dunno,” you shrug. “Sollux went off to pick out something.” You think Gamzee has it down to an art form, the way he manages to look sloppy even in his dark purple, incredibly expensive tailored suit. There’s a lowblood shakily trying to fix him up, which you guess was provided by the store to cater to highbloods. Gamzee just pats him on the head and tells him to ‘just let nature take its course.’ The assistant gives up and returns with a selection of ties to match his blood colour.

You are suddenly apprehensive. Is that customary? You’re glad when Sollux returns with an armful of black suit jackets and pants with a grey undershirt. He shoves you into a fitting block and you silently thank him for being so familiar with the sizes since you spend a grand total of five minutes trying things on before he deems one acceptable. You do however notice that he picks the one that’s tight around your waist, forcing you to stand up straighter. Probably just to spite you.

He then drags you over to the ties and picks up a red one. You shove his hand down and shake your head furiously. “No red.”

“Red ith a good colour on you.”

“No. Red.”

He makes a frustrated noise and puts it back down. “Well you can’t wear all grey. You’ll have to match with TZ then.” He loops a teal tie around your neck.

“What? No!”

“It’th thith or red. Why not?” He puts you back in front of the mirror. You really look at yourself and you have to admit you didn’t even think you were capable of looking like this. The fit is exceptional and the bright teal goes well over the grey and the deep black of the pinstriped jacket.

“It’s just… it’s  _her_  colour. It makes me look like… like I belong to her or something.”

Sollux snorts. “You’re her weapon and the’th the only thing keeping you from being culled now. Thorry nookwipe, you  _do_  kind of belong to her. Thuck it up.”

 

 

Feferi’s money pays for everything, which you tried to refuse but Sollux said she was very insistent. You climb the rope ladder with the suit box under your arm (which you are actually getting better at) and your bloodpusher skips a beat when you hear voices. You hoist yourself up and bristle immediately at the presence of a troll other than Terezi in your well-hidden hive, but relax when you recognise Kanaya’s voice.

You open the door to see Terezi in a teal dress, standing on a box in the middle of the block with her arms out while Kanaya fusses over her.

“Hey Nubs!” she grins in greeting. “Did you find a suit?”

You grunt indicative of the positive and make your way quickly to your respiteblock, shutting the door behind you before she can get a whiff of the colour rising to your cheeks. You breathe a few times and it recedes quickly, since you had long ago learned how to control any outward indication of your blood colour, but it’s not often you get caught off guard like that.

Crap.

She was  _gorgeous._

You had never seen your partner in anything remotely feminine before and honestly, it hadn’t really crossed your mind to think of her that way. It had always been about the way she fought and how powerful her soul was and her intelligence and  _holy crap her dress showed cleavage._

Dammit.

Kanaya had styled her hair and taken her glasses and somehow made her horribly burned eyes look  _pretty_. From the way she fights you know how tones her legs must have been but you had also never seen her with no pants before and the dress reached just to her knees and _damn it all to Gamzee’s juggalo hell._

You need to take a long walk off your short deck.

 

 

Having been foiled in your death march attempt by Kanaya catching you and fussing over your mop of wiry hair as well, the next evening finds you not so much ‘escorting’ as being dragged by Terezi up the front stairs of the Academy to the dolled up front entrance hall.

The ongoing effort to keep yourself from not looking at the front of Terezi’s dress leaves you paying an awful lot of attention to your surroundings. That’s why as soon as you step through the door your exceptionally warm blood runs cold at the sight of your worst fear at the opposite end of the hall. The Empress herself lounges apathetically on an elaborate seashell throne, surveying the students as they mingle below.

“Terezi,” you hiss. “ _She’s_  here.”

She pats your arm that she’s hanging off of. “There are tons of trolls here, Karkat. She’s not going to notice you, and even if she does she’ll just think you’re another tealblood. Now come on, I smell our friends!”

She was right, it seems, as the evening passes more or less uneventfully spent leaning against the snack table with your mouth perpetually full, chatting easily with this small group of trolls that you’ve come to trust. At the moment your partner is off dancing with Sollux and you can’t really keep yourself from watching. She really can be graceful when she wants to be, though you do recognise a few steps from her fighting style and smile to yourself. Even fancy and girly she’s a fighter. Her and Sollux are perfectly in sync and no you are not jealous. Why on Alternia would you be jealous, she can dance with her moirail whenever she wants. It’s not like you dance anyways. Which is not to say that you don’t know  _how._ You are the master of romcoms, of course you’ve picked up a few things.

_Damn she’s beautiful._

You hear a small giggle from beside you and immediately tear your eyes away. Aradia smiles at you then looks back at your meisters the way you just were. “So I’m not the only one then.”

You quickly shove a few more snacks in your mouth.

The song ends and you see your meisters bow to eachother after a twirling finish. Then, as a unit, they grin and look directly at you. You quickly swallow your mouthful as they walk over, Sollux grabbing Aradia’s hand and Terezi grabbing yours, dragging you to the middle of the floor despite your protests.

Of course the next song had to be a slow one. She wraps her arms around your neck and you look everywhere but down. She’s leading but you’re too distracted to really care as you try your best to match her movements and not step on her feet. She leans against you and closes her eyes, smiling and just enjoying swaying to the music as you rest your hands on her waist. You take a deep breath and force yourself to relax and for a moment, you let yourself believe you’re not in danger of being culled, and things might actually turn out okay for you.

That moment is over in the next instant when the entire hall shakes with the force of an explosion.


	7. Chapter 7

You stumble slightly, hanging on to Terezi protectively as the floor shakes below you. Everyone is confused and looking towards the Empress for instruction, but you spot Kanaya waving frantically and lead Terezi over to her, motioning for Sollux and Aradia to follow.

“I must speak with you immediately. Collect the other three and follow me quickly,” she says in a rush, and you and Sollux run to get Gamzee, Tavros, and Feferi and drag them after her. She ducks out a side door into a small hallway.

“I have discovered something of dire importance, though I fear it may already be too late. Miss Feferi, have you-” She looks up sharply, just past you. You whirl around to see a figure standing a bit down the hallway, just in front of the biggest doors to the main hall. They run their fingers down the seam between the doors. There’s a hiss and some steam, then a shadow seems to pulse out from the spot the fingers last touched. It spreads out over the door and past it, along the walls until it passes over the side door you just came out of. Kanaya quickly tries to open the door again. It doesn’t move an inch, even though the knob turns fine. You shift your arm into your scythe blade and try to cut through, but it doesn’t make a scratch.

“So, uh, is everyone trapped in there except us?” Tavros says nervously.

The figure turns towards you at the noise and you hear a sharp intake o breath from Aradia. You recognise this troll. It’s the oliveblood girl that sits behind you in Alternian and always seems to drop her pencils under your desk. You catch sight of her eyes and clench your teeth. It’s the same glassy look that weird brownblood you fought had.

She turns and runs in the opposite direction. Kanaya hesitates for a moment and runs after her, motioning for the rest of you to follow. “Weapons, transform now!”

Terezi takes a clip from her hair and pins her dress up a little bit, then catches your weapon form as she runs. At least her dress was short to begin with and she wasn’t wearing heels, so her movements weren’t impeded too badly.

The oliveblood exits the Academy and, oddly, runs in the direction of Feferi’s hive. You quickly lose sight of her in the gardens.

“Feferi,” Kanaya turns to Sollux with his pistols.

“Yes?” her voice echos out confusedly.

“Do you know where the Empress keeps her lusus?”

She only sounds more confused. “Of course.”

“Can you lead Sollux there over your connection, and on the way tell us all you can about it?”

Sollux closes his eyes for a moment, then nods and takes the lead.

“Gl’bgolyb is a reelly big squidbeast. Condesce keeps her in a flooded cavern underneath our hive and goes down there every day to feed her. I don’t usually visit because I get a headache.”

“A headache?” Kanaya asks suspiciously.

“Yeah. Condesce says it’s from the depth but I dunno. I’m fine in deep ocean, I guess deep land is just different. But yeah um… she’s not allowed to leave the cave since Condesce says if she meets another big squidbeast they’ll get into a fight and that won’t be good. No one other than us two are allowed down there, which I’m also not sure aboat, since she gets her purplebloods to do everyfin else for her, but makes shore to feed Gl’bgolyb hershell.”

Kanaya looks grim as she runs up the stairs to the extravagant hive and follows Sollux through its hallways. “Based on the information I’ve managed to dig up as well as the events transpiring currently, I’m going to have to assume that Gl’bgolyb is no ordinary squidbeast, but instead a kind of ancient species with incredible psychic ability that only adult tyrians are completely immune to. This would explain why you would get a headache from getting too close to it and no one other than members of your bloodcaste is allowed to approach. Anyone with an even slightly vulnerable mind will experience hallucinations and forceful suggestion.”

“Are you saying that there’s a monster below this hive that has the ability to control our minds, the lower our bloodcaste the more vulnerable we are, and we’re going to go _down_  there?” Sollux’s voice raises slightly in pitch.

“Yes.” Kanaya reaches the door to the stairs and stops. “Vriska has mind control abilities of her own. if she is allowed to ally herself with this much more powerful creature I don’t have to tell you how disastrous it could be. We are the only ones left and so we are the only ones that an do this, must do this. Now, Sollux and Aradia, if you keep a strong connection with Feferi your combined wavelengths along with Feferi’s caste will strengthen your mind’s defenses and if I am correct, you will not be vulnerable to control. Hallucinations may still be an issue. Tavros, same for you since Gamzee’s caste should only be vulnerable to mild suggestion as he has formidable psychic abilities of his own. Understood?”

The two meisters nod in agreement with their weapons. Your uneasiness increases as she turns to you and Terezi uncertainly.

“You two will be the most vulnerable, so it is imperative that you stay in resonance. Combining your minds in that way should at least give you an increased awareness of another presence attempting to slip in. That way you have a chance of resisting. I’m not entirely sure how Karkat’s blood will have an effect, however. I’m assuming it would be similar to Aradia’s, though it might be something else entirely.”

Kanaya removes her coat and sets it on the doorknob as she opens it. “Guard your minds, and prevent Vriska from releasing the creature at all costs.”

 

 

Terezi keeps up a quickly, steady pace with the others, not sprinting like before so as not to tire herself out before the inevitable battle. She senses your uneasiness and whispers to you, giving your soul a reassuring nudge. “It’s okay, but we need to be confident now, alright?”

“I don’t want my stupid mutant blood to be the reason you get possessed by a psychic tentacle monster,” you sigh in frustration.

“You don’t know that it will be. Besides, we’re both pretty headstrong and obnoxious,” she grins, “I’d like to see it try to overcome our combined insubordination.”

You snort and smile to yourself in your mindspace. “You’re a pretty cool partner, you know.”

“I know.”

You soon become aware of a certain feeling of physical pressure that grows in strength the deeper you travel down the slanted cavernous passage. This is a reason for a certain amount of alarm, as in your weapon form you are unable to physically feel anything, which means the effect must be in your mindspace. You could equate it to a severe sense of claustrophobia, if you happened to be claustrophobic at all. Whatever the case, your mindspace seemed to be pressing in on you and latch on tightly to Terezi’s as you sense hers do the same. You are not going to let whatever it is in and you are not going to let it break your connection.

Suddenly Kanaya stops and throws out an arm that Terezi almost runs into. “I can sense Vriska’s soul approaching. I will engage her in combat while the three of you focus all your energy on slipping past. I will occupy her while you go on ahead and prevent her no-doubt mindcontrolled servant from releasing the creature. Understood?”

The meisters nod as the blueblood walks into sight and crosses her arms. “Well this is troublesome. I didn’t expect to see you again _this_  soon.”

“Vriska. What do you think you’re doing here?” Kanaya asks, unfazed.

“Oh I know you must have figured it out by now. I had been experimenting with my mental abilities and discovered a much bigger psychic presence when I used to go to school here: the greatest of the horrorterrors, Gl’bgolyb. I had always been able to exercise same amount of control over the lower castes, but once I made a connection with Gl’bgolyb I was able to channel its power, like the weapon I am, and use it to both completely take over a lowbloods mind  _and_  give them these grimdark abilities.” She raises her arm and the shadows behind her form into the black tendrils, though hers look much more like arachnid legs then tentacles. She grins toothily. “Pretty cool right?

“Unfortunately Gl’bgolyb is stuck down here with psychic suppressants from the juggalos so I can only control lowbloods or lusi, and only one at a time. If I get it out of here though I could make anyone go grimdark! And all at the same time too! I could take over Alternia and crown myself Empress if I felt like it. Wouldn’t that be _awesome?!_ ”

Kanaya narrows her eyes. “Vriska, you have no idea if the creature will submit to your whims once you free it. It may very well kill you and everyone else.”

“Nah, we have an understanding. Why do you always have to be such a downer, fussyfangs?” The black legs whip forward and slam into the ground where Kanaya would have been if she hadn’t leapt back a moment before. Terezi takes the chance to start making her way silently around to the side of the passage, trying to slip past Vriska while she’s busy attacking Kanaya.

Vriska spots her though, and her tendrils continue lashing out at Kanaya while she herself leaps for Terezi. Your meister brings up the scythe hilt to guard and is almost knocked backwards by her kick. Vriska’s leg, however, stays exactly where it hit, latched on to the scythe by what looks like a hook of a chainsaw belt.

That’s it. Her weapon form is a chainsaw. She must be able to transform a portion of her leg to house the rotator chain just like you’re able to transform your arm into your scythe blade. “Terezi! Brace yourself!”

Vriska grins as there’s a click and the beginning of a dull roar. The belt starts to rotate, almost wrenching the scythe out of Terezi’s hands, but she braces herself and tries to shove back. The chainsaw blades screech and spark against the metal as she’s pushed back against the wall. You hear a few bangs and golden bursts of light, and though none of Sollux’s bullets hit her she’s forced to dodge and jump back from Terezi.

“You okay Karkat?”

“Yeah of course just go!”

Terezi takes the opportunity and runs past her while Sollux continues to fire. Gamzee does the same on the opposite side of the passage, and once they’re both safely past Sollux leaps up and sails over her head using his psionics. Vriska turns to strike out at them again, just as Kanaya dashes up and strikes her in the stomach with an open palm. Her soul force hits her hard and she’s thrown back but lands on her feet, though her black tendrils disintegrate slightly. Terezi, Gamzee, and Sollux continue running past her with a quick thumbs up from Kanaya, and you lose sight of her as you round a corner in the passage.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the refs for all the characters if anyone wanted them http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/058/5/9/souleaterstuck___character_lineup_by_night_of_void-d5wgi7b.png

You hear the whirring of the chainsaw blades for a long time afterwards, echoing off the cavernous walls as Terezi and the others continue ever downwards at a quick jog. Eventually though, even it too fades until there is no other sound than the panting of your meister’s breath and the clap of her flats on the stone. You suddenly feel a twinge of anticipation from Terezi’s soul. A few moments later you become aware of a constant rushing sound, which you recognize as running water as you get closer. You suppose she heard it first due to her heightened no-sight senses.

Your soul’s hold on hers is the strongest it’s ever been now without actually resonating, almost completely enveloping it protectively as the outside pressure increases. You can tell it’s starting to affect her, as the rhythm of her strides starts to falter and her thoughts become muddled and unfocused. You find your own train of thought straying easily, back to yesterday’s realisation of your attraction to your meister, and you steer yourself back furiously to the task at hand. You really shouldn’t think about that now of all times, both because of the danger and the fact that her mind is so close to yours currently, but it’s becoming harder and harder with every one of her steps to think clearly.

You turn your frustration into anger and use it to shove back against the bounds of both yours and Terezi’s rapidly combining and rapidly decreasing mindspaces.

Due to her distraction, it’s only when you enter the massive half-flooded cavern that you feel her become aware of the existence of two soul wavelengths similar to your own, only a few meters away. She stops short and shifts instantly into a defensive stance, almost in sync with Sollux, who must have just sensed them too. Gamzee, on the other hand, stops just to avoid crashing into the other two, looking around confusedly before following their gaze.

The troll girl that had sealed the hall stands and stares at the group of you for a moment before leaping back behind a rock pile. Terezi runs after her and reaches the back of the cavern at the edge of the shoreline. She stops short again as the girl leaps to stand beside another troll, a very large, very muscular male that turns and looms over you at her approach. It seems he had been working to break down the cavern wall, since just behind him you could see cracks in the rock where water was starting to trickle through-

Oh. That was the plan. This cave was below sea level. They were going to flood the whole place so the squidbeast could just swim to the surface.  That was probably why Vriska was on her way up, so she wouldn’t drown. Like you’re about to. Crap.

Terezi follows your train of thought and you feel her spike of fear as the much taller troll approaches. Your bond falters and you push back at her with sheer determination. There’s too much at stake right now for either of you to be scared and it’s really not like her, but the pressure on your minds is so strong right now that it’s taking all of your concentration to keep in control of the little space you have left. You feel her take the hint and reorient herself, bringing the blade up defensively but holding her ground.

Just as you think the troll is about to strike, he disappears in a flash of light. Terezi sniffs around confusedly until she notices the heavy duty gauntlets with incredibly long, sharp clawlike blades that had just appeared on the troll girl’s hands. She lets out a laugh in relief, cut short as the oliveblood leaps forward at an incredible speed and slashes at her viciously. Terezi’s quick reflexes are the only thing that saves her as she flinches backwards, though a few drops of teal fall from her cheek.

The girl’s glassy eyes take on a new light as she grins, wide, cat-like, and completely deranged. “Stupid tealblood underestimates AC. Voices say slice her into purrty little pieces. Voices say more teal lots of teal. Teal! Teal! Teal!” She comes at Terezi again. It’s all she can do to just dodge as clawblades flash past almost too quickly to see.

“Nepeta!” Terezi growls and the girl falters slightly, pausing her onslaught confusedly.

“That’s your name right?” Terezi pants. “You’re in my Meister Form class. Why are you doing this? Don’t let her control you!”

She blinks a few times, then starts giggling madly. “Spider voice says AC break wall and we did! We did it!” She jumps and does a backflip off the wall, a large section of the rock crumbling down where her feet pushed off. A large stream of water shoots out and you get an idea of the pressure behind it. That wall is going to come down whether she touches it again or not. It’s only a matter of time now. “AC broke wall, now spider voice gone! Gone! Gone! Gone! Now other voices just say  _kill._ ”

She comes at Terezi again, but Sollux catches up and starts firing at her, forcing her to dodge. Terezi mutters some curses and her mind tries to go to work at figuring out a plan despite the distracting pressure. “She’s not being controlled by Vriska anymore,” she speaks out loud to you, “Which means it’s just the ‘horrorterror’ or whatever that’s messing with her mind.”

“Why does it matter who’s controlling her, she still wants to kill us either way. We have to take her down and we need to do it fast before this whole place is under water.”

“But… she’s still a classmate. I don’t want to hurt her too badly.”

“Me neither, but we don’t have a  _choice_  Terezi. Get it together.”

She rubs at her temple and groans. “It’s so difficult to think…” You try again to put all your effort into pushing back the bounds around her mind as you feel it trying to make connections. Another large mass of rock tumbles from the wall, letting in more water.

Terezi runs back in to slash at Nepeta. “Sollux, I might have an idea. Let me fight her, you get Gamzee and try to stop that wall from coming down.”

Sollux nods and goes to work, while Terezi steps up her game and tries to match Nepeta’s speed. The seven blades slash and spark off of eachother furiously, but you notice that Terezi isn’t putting any effort into actually gaining ground. Her focus is entirely filtered through her soul perception ability, forcing herself to ignore the pressure and analyze the oliveblood’s essence while still staying out of claw reach.

She falters increasingly often, and the teal scratches that appear on her skin get deeper and deeper. You know she must sense your worry by now since she redoubles her efforts and starts muttering to you, though you can sense her hesitation.

“I have a plan, but you’re not going to like it.”

“We’re running out of time. I’m willing to try just about anything at this point.”

“I think we should let in whatever it is that’s pushing at our minds.”

“Are you  _insane?!_ ”

She grins somewhat sheepishly. “Not yet.”

“What is that supposed to accomplish?! You’re just going to end up like her!”

She grunts as Nepeta lands a kick to her stomach and skids back a bit, catching her breath and defending the next attack before replying, just loud enough to hear over the oliveblood’s mad giggles and narrations of every move she makes. “Exactly. Vriska did something different with her than the other grimdark troll we fought. I can still sense her true soul under the layer of the horrorterror’s control, whereas the other one had pretty much nothing left, that’s why she still has some elements of her personality and the other one was braindead. She wanted a servant that could somewhat think for itself this time.”

“Yeah? So what?”

“ _So_ , if I could make a connection with her soul, I might be able to help her fight off the other presence. But I can’t get in with that thing blocking me and this pressure that’s taking most of my concentration. If I give myself the same thing she has, the barrier around her soul is less likely to reject mine since it will recognize the familiar presence.”

“You  _are_ insane.”

“It’s the best I could think of given the circumstances alright? I can do it.”

“Won’t you just be playing into Vriska’s hands?”

“Vriska won’t be the one controlling me. I’m reasonably sure this creature is a mostly neutral party, like Kanaya said. It’s not in on Vriska’s plan, and as far as I can tell from Nepeta it just makes her want to kill, doesn’t matter who. If I let it control me I’ll just keep fighting her like I’m doing now.”

You sigh in exasperation. “Even if you are able to make the connection and help her, how are you going to ‘un-grimdark’ yourself?!”

“Well… I was hoping you would pull me out once I’m done.”

“You think I can do that?”

“…I trust you not to let go of me. Are you going to?”

“Of course not.”

Terezi finally lands a blow, cutting pretty deep into Nepeta’s upper arm. She hisses angrily and raises her other arm. The shadow under it forms into tentacles and surrounds Terezi. “Teal girl isn’t fun to play with anymore! Kill.”

“Karkat, now!”

Every fibre of your being is screaming ‘this is a bad idea’ at you, but you pull back your protection around Terezi’s soul and instead pick a tendril to latch onto to maintain a portion of your connection. The barrier around Terezi’s mindspace breaks and the horrorterror’s floods in, half entering your own mindspace in a rush and almost suffocating you to the point where you lose your hold on Terezi. You don’t though, you shove it back with all the strength you have left in you. You’re not going to lose her. You can heard all the murderous voices in your head now though, whispering into your being, but you still have it in you to tune them out.

What you can’t tune out, is the most unnatural sounding laugh you’ve ever heard in your life bursting from your meister’s throat, shaking her whole body and echoing around the cavern. The wisps of black tentacles forming around her body start to twine around your scythe pole and send a chill through your soul. Terezi wobbles on her feet, then backflips over Nepeta’s wave of tentacles and swings the scythe around hard with all her momentum. The hilt slams into Nepeta’s side before she can react and sends her flying across the cavern. Terezi stabs the blade into the ground and climbs up the pole to get a better look at her trajectory.

“Ooooooh little kitty-bird flew!” She laughs again, then turns around to look maliciously at Sollux and Gamzee by the cavern wall.

Crap.


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

 

 

The shadowy mass floods in and surrounds you completely. Any power you may have had over your weapon form is wrenched from your grasp, though thankfully Terezi’s soul is not. You see only clouded, murky images of what is going on outside as Terezi turns on your friends, and only a far-off warped voice as Sollux screams at her to stop. Terezi’s voice, however, echoes loud and clear right through your soul, though it’s not really her own. It’s somehow pitched higher and lower at the same time, and incredibly insane.

“Heeeey Mr. Appleberry Blast.” She stalks over to Sollux, backing him against the cavern wall. He brings his twin pistols up in front of his face in an effort to shield himself, not being able to muster the nerve to actually shoot at her. Two tentacles shoot up to snatch both weapons out of his hands and fling them across the cavern. Terezi leaps forward and slams him against the rock, bringing the scythe up to his neck and taking a deep sniff. Sollux yells something at her that you can’t make out and then… holy crap… then she brings her face close and _licks_ him from his jawline, right over his eyelid, to his hairline.

“You taste all appleberry on the outside, but on the inside I bet you’re tangy lemony! Or maybe just mustardy. Let’s find out!”

You have never in your life felt as helpless as you do now, with your blade piercing your best friend’s throat and being unable to transform or risk breaking your connection and losing your meister’s soul forever to a giant squidbeast. Terezi giggles maniacally until your scythe form is abruptly dropped, Gamzee having flashstepped up behind her to loop his elbows underneath her armpits and lift her off the ground.

“Hey sis, you gotta chill. That’s your palebro there,” he drawls mildly as she hisses and kicks in his grasp. The murkiness of your senses had receded slightly once she let go of you, and you fight to maintain the even weaker connection.

Terezi jerks her head to the side, scratching Gamzee across the face with her horn and biting her razor-sharp teeth down hard on his hand. He yelps and drops her, and she immediately reaches for you and swings the pole around to hit him on the backs of his knees. He topples to the ground, clutching his bleeding face and hand.

Terezi stands over him, happily licking the purple blood off her face. “Mr. Grape Faygo, you are charged with assaulting a legislacerator. You are sentenced to death…” she raises the scythe over her head, “… by decapitation, I think, as it seems to be your preferred method.”

There’s a bang and a pink burst of light hits Terezi on the hand. She hisses and stumbles back, but manages not to lose her grip on the scythe this time. She holds it ready at her side in her uninjured hand as she turns to Feferi, holding Aradia’s weapon form. Before either of them can make another move however, Nepeta comes screeching back at a sprint, bowling Feferi over and leaping at Terezi, claw blades extended. She brings the scythe up to block but falls backwards with the force, and the two of them tumble over eachother hissing and spitting.

You’re relieved now that she’s actually fighting the person she’s supposed to instead of your friends, and they seem to be evenly matched at the moment so she’s not in as much danger as before. Their respective tentacle-controlling abilities pretty much cancel eachother out, so they rely on the enhanced speed of their blades, though never manage to leave more than shallow cuts on eachother. Now that they’re in such close proximity you expect Terezi’s soul to go to work on making the connection. You hope the others take the hint and go back to working on the wall. You can feel the energy draining from you since Terezi wasn’t giving any back from her side of the connection anymore, and you don’t have the strength left to attempt to call out to Sollux. You’re just… so tired…

Suddenly Nepeta stumbles back and clutches at her head. You can see the dark shadows almost melt off her, and when she blinks confusedly a few times you notice that they’re no longer clouded over. Unfortunately, Terezi takes advantage of Nepeta’s sudden change and again swings the pole of the scythe around to hit her hard enough to send her flying. She hits the cavern wall right where it’s crumbling, and a massive crack forms extending all the way to the ceiling. She hits the floor unconscious and her weapon transforms back into a troll to tend to her.

“Karkat!” you hear a faint voice call, and it’s Terezi’s _real_ voice. You feel so, so weak, but you put every ounce of strength you have left into pulling her soul free from the horrorterror’s control. As soon as you see the tentacles disappear and feel her start to regain control of her body, you shift back out of your weapon form and collapse on the ground, unable to maintain it anymore. Terezi lands dazed on the ground beside you.

Nepeta’s weapon runs over to you with her in his arms. “I apologise profusely for our earlier behaviour and offer you many thanks, tealblood, for freeing my meister and therefore myself, but unfortunately your last blow has weakened the structural integrity of this cavern beyond repair and we must leave immediately or drown,” he says urgently.

So you… you failed. You gaze numbly up at the crack in the ceiling, watching it branch out further as more and more spouts of water appear. A drop hits your face and you come to your senses, grabbing Terezi’s hand and stumbling weakly to your feet. Your first and most important duty is to the safety of your meister. That’s been the one thing ingrained into you the most in all your schooling. Nothing else matters now, you think as you drag her stumbling down the passageway as quickly as you can manage, alongside Nepeta’s weapon and Sollux leading still-bleeding Gamzee.

You’re only about halfway down the passage when the roar of rushing water almost deafens you. You glance back and take a deep breath, most of which is knocked out of you as the wall of water hits with the force of a cannon blast. You hold tight to Terezi’s arm and manage not to lose her, but you’re horrified to hear a snap just as the water tries to carry her away. As you’re pulled underwater and pushed up the passage along with the water, you yank her over to you and press her against your chest to shield her from the rock debris. You’re still holding on to her tightly as your air runs out and you black out.

 

 

You wake up exhausted, cursing yourself for trying to open your eyes and being almost blinded, _again_ , by the fluorescent white of the heath unit lights. You’re not in nearly as much pain as last time, though there is a tube stuck down your throatstem uncomfortably. You realise you actually had pretty much drowned, if they needed to put this thing in you to drain your air sacs. Wait, had you needed CPR? Crap, you hope no one kissed you.

When your eyes finally adjust, you look around. Everything is exactly the same, except this time Terezi isn’t standing over you, she’s in the sopor tray next to you.

You sit up immediately to try to see if she’s alright, but she just smiles at you and gives a weak “Hey.”

It startles you slightly since her eyes were closed, until you remember she doesn’t really need them. You’ve been forgetting lately.

“Good morning sunshine.”

You try to respond but choke on your tube, so you set to work at pulling it out slowly.

“Kanaya said you could go as soon as you woke up. You only had minor injuries and she bandaged them already. You should take a good long nap when you get back to the hive though.”

The tube finally comes free and you almost puke. It was as long as your _forearm_. You set it aside with a disgusted glare and cough a few times.

“So what about you?” you rasp out.

She hesitates for a moment. “Kanaya… wants me to stay here just for another day.”

You push yourself off your tray and rush over to hers. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s okay. I’m okay. The others are all okay too by the way. It’s just… my arm is kind of… broken?”

You gape at her.

“Yeah I’m… not going to be much help as a meister for a while.” She smiles sadly and sighs. “Which kind of sucks since I just let an insanely powerful psychic monster free into the world.”

“…So it did escape.”

She nods. “Vriska did too but Kanaya’s alright. Seems I wasn’t much of a meister even with my arm.”

“Wait, Terezi, you can’t blame yourself for what happened-“

“But it _was_ my fault. If I hadn’t attacked the others there still might have been time for them to fix the wall.”

“You weren’t in your right mind.”

“I _chose_ not to be in my right mind, with no idea of what I might do.”

“And it was a _good choice_ , idiot.” You lay a hand gently on her good arm. “If you hadn’t made it, Nepeta would have killed us _and_ still be under the horrorterror’s control.”

She frowns but doesn’t argue further. Kanaya returns and checks you over once then ushers you out of the health unit. As soon as you’re pushed into the hallway you’re hit with a tight hug.

“Thank-you thank-you mister Karkitty for saving me I’m glad I didn’t hurt you,” a muffled voice from a bandaged head says from your chest.

You pat her awkwardly. “Uh… it was Terezi that did most of the saving really, but I’m glad you’re alright too.”

She lets you go and clasps her hands behind her back shyly. “I’ve already thanked her too. I’m very sorry for hurting her.”

“It wasn’t your fault, don’t worry about it.”

She smiles up at you and someone claps you on the back, starting you coughing again.

“So, troll Sleeping Beauty is finally awake huh?”

“Go suck a bulge Captor.”

“Hey, be a little nicer, I’ve already decided to forgive you for almost slicing through my neck.”

“So why are you the only one who looks so healthy?” you say as you turn to him, seeing only the small band aid on his neck.

He smirks. “Because FF can swim. Now come on, I want you to help me with something.” He pulls you down the hallway, and Nepeta gives you a small wave and skips back to her weapon.

Sollux drags you to the library and presents you with a fancy-looking book. “I found this while I was waiting for Terezi to wake up.”

You raise an eyebrow at him and take the book, skimming the page he indicated. “Nerd.”

“Smarter than you,” he shoots back, unfazed. “But look, it’s a whole book about this super powerful legendary pirate weapon, and here it says that its descendant inherited all its cool powers and lives on a secret island not too far out from here. Now that there’s a horrorterror loose, if we could find this guy it would probably come in handy, eh?”

“Okay yeah I guess, if you can find it. What makes you think I want to come along?”

“Your meister’s out of commission, you’ve got nothing better to do. I didn’t want FF and AA to think I was trying to replace them, and GZ’s still getting his face stitched up, so then there’s you.”

“Alright fine, if you really think you can find this island and it doesn’t end up being some wild honkbeast chase.”

“I guarantee it.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long and it's short but I should be updating more regularily again now
> 
> (in the mean time you guys should read this SES smut omake my friend wrote ehehehe http://hemotypist.tumblr.com/post/60141879455/souleaterstuck-weaponsexual )

 

Either Sollux is even smarter and has a better sense of direction than you thought he did, or this island is embarrassingly easy to find. Not as easy to get to though, since it’s a ways out to sea and in the middle of a reef with sharp rocks. The rowboat you ‘borrowed’ from the academy’s dock is small enough that you can weave through them, though. In theory at least. If you and Sollux could actually figure out how to row as a team. Most of the ride is full of narrow misses and yelling.

The island itself is more like a large rock than an actual island, but it’s half-covered by a massive shipwreck. You transform your arm and stab the scythe blade into the rotten wood to anchor the boat while Sollux gets out to grab some of the old ship’s rigging to tie it down.

The slanted deck creaks in protest as the two of you climb up to the belowdecks entrance. The inside of the ship, however, is the opposite of decrepit. A new floor had been built on level in the sideways hallway, covered in expensive-looking carpets and lined with colourful tapestries, with some intricate feathery corals growing on the bare wood portions.

You come to an offshoot hallway and find it just as rotten as the top deck. The contrast between it and your current hallway is huge.

You raise an eyebrow at Sollux and he shrugs. “I say we follow the frou-frou renovations. It will either lead us to where we’re supposed to go or to some sort of boobytrap, which also means we’ll be heading in the right direction.”

He continues walking past the decrepit hall and and you make sure to fall in slightly behind him so that whatever is going to happen, happens to him first. “Can you see anyone?”

He stops and removes his glasses, concentrating hard. “I… I can actually. Just one soul on the ship besides ours, and it looks like a weapon’s soul from what I can tell. It’s in the direction that we’re going too.” He puts his glasses back on and keeps going.

You chew on your lip and walk a bit closer. “Hey, don’t you think this is a little too easy? For a supposed legendary weapon and all…”

He turns to you and grins. “Why, KK? Are you _scared?_ ”

“Of course I’m not scared!” you say indignantly, stepping away from him.

“It’s okay, I’ll protect you from the spooky ghost ship monsters.”

You punch him in the shoulder and he zaps you with psionics and all at once you’re in front of a large jewel-and-coral encrusted double door. You stand behind him again and see him hesitate before reaching for the handle.

The room beyond is just as extravagantly decorated as the hallway, with the addition of tasseled couches and walls covered in bookshelves and maps. At the very opposite end of the room is a gold stand on which sits what looks like a large harpoon rifle gun.

“That’s it. It looks just like the picture in the book,” Sollux whispers and steps up to it cautiously. He lifts it off the stand and you brace for the ship to collapse around you.

Nothing happens.

Sollux blinks and turns the weapon around in his hands. “It’s not even heavy. I guess it syncs well with my soul.”

“From the first time you hold it? Here, let me try.”

“But you’re-”

You take the rifle from him and it doesn’t drop from your hands either. Sollux looks like his thinkpan just short-circuited.

“You couldn’t even sync with TZ your first time, how the hell are you able to sync with that? And you’re a weapon, it should be even harder for you!” He takes his glasses off and looks you over critically.

“Maybe it’s just a regular rifle.”

“No, it definitely has a soul. Maybe it… has some sort of special ability so it’s able to sync with anyone?”

“But then why hasn’t anyone taken it before us?”

The rifle trembles in your hand and you let it go quickly. In a flash of light, another troll stands betwee the two of you, one of very high bloodcaste judging by the fins where his ears should be. He stands straight and tall with one hand  on a thin white cane, his pale high-collared cape settling around his feet as he looks the both of you up and down with a hint of distain.

“Lowbloods, are ye? Well, I can make even someone like you great. Are ye meisters then?” he says with a strange accent.

You don’t really know what you were expecting, but it wasn’t him. You glance at Sollux. “He’s a meister, I’m not.”

He shifts his full attention immediately to Sollux as he walks around you, gesturing his hand with a little flourish. “Congratulations, meister. As you probably know, I am the legendary weapon Eridan Ampora, descendant of the mighty Dualscar.” He turns to point with his cane at a ceiling-to-floor painting of a regal-looking seatroll.

He continues. “Conquered the seas in the name of the Empress, taken back from the infamous Mindfang, who was dishonorably discharged from Her Imperial Condescension’s elite unit after killin’ her own partner. Even she was no match for his power. The same power I happen to have, by the way,” He grins toothily. “With even a shoddy meister I can vaporize any enemy in my path within seconds, and I never miss.”

“Kind of full of himself, isn’t he?” Sollux leans over and whispers to you.

The weapon whirls around to glare at him with pursed lips. “No chattin’ while I’m speakin’ _pissblood_.”

Your eyes widen and you look quickly from him to Sollux in horror. Sollux looks as shocked as you feel for instant, then you feel the air start to crackle with psionics. Eridan continues his grandstanding until Sollux interrupts him. “What did you call me?”

The weapon stops short and raises an eyebrow at him. “What’re yer aurals faulty? I called ye a pissblood, because based on this,” he raises his cane and taps the yellow symbol on Sollux’s collar, “yer blood’s the colour of _piss_.”

Sollux bats the cane away angrily and you quickly grab his arm to hold him back.

“And as I said,” Eridan continues, “you got no business interruptin’ someone like me when I’m talkin’. However, I will be forgivin’ and generous and still allow you to become legendary so long as you behave yerself.”

He transforms and drops into Sollux’s arms, his voice echoing out of the rifle metallically. “Now you may go out and annihilate your enemies, meister.”

Sollux looks at the gun, then at you with a smirk. He strides to the other side of the room and places the legendary weapon back on its stand, then turns and heads for the door. “No thanks.”

“Wh- Wait! Where’re you goin’?”

“Being ‘legendary’ wouldn’t be worth having to put up with you. Bye, douchebag.”

You follow Sollux back through the ship with a laugh, leaving the other weapon’s protests behind. Now you know why no one had taken him before you.


	11. Chapter 11

It’s only been two weeks since your failure in the cavern, and things are already not looking good for Alternia. The horrorterror is assumed to have escaped into the sea behind the Empress’ hive along with Vriska, as one of the ships from the royal fleet went missing on the same day. Reports about coastal and sea-dwelling lusi attacking or abandoning their trolls come in daily now, and classes have been mostly canceled aside from combat training so that teams of students from the upper levels can be sent out as reinforcements for the weapons and meisters already in the Empress’ threshecutioners, cavalreapers, laughsassins, ruffiannihilators, archeradicators, and whichever other units sent out to suppress the chaos. It’s become even more problematic since more and more of the lowbloods sent to fight become dazed and unresponsive when faced with a grimdark enemy, and the highbloods of the castes that are more prone to violence have lost control of themselves much more often. Moirails have become a precious resource.

At the moment, however, you have to do a whole lot of nothing.

“Come on, Karkat. Let’s train.” Terezi walks to the door of the hive and fumbles round with putting her coat on.

You’re mildly surprised. She’s hardly left her block at all since the accident and hasn’t said much to you at all since the health unit. “I’m watching a movie.”

“How can you be watching a movie at a time like this?”

You pause it. “We’ve got nothing better to do right now. We’re not _allowed_ to train, Terezi. Your arm is still broken.”

She growls in exasperation. “Well I’m not going to _use_ it! I want to work on our resonance attack not my scythe wielding.”

“You’re still supposed to rest-”

“I’m sick of sitting here doing nothing! Now get your fat lazy ass out of my hive,” she spits. “I’m your meister and I’ve made a decision.”

You stare at her over the back of the couch. She’s never used meister authority over you before and there’s not a hint of humour in her voice. Something’s definitely up with her so you decide not to argue this time and see if you can figure it out. You follow her obediently but disgruntled over to the back training field of the school. A few other students are using the field as well, Sollux among them. He starts to walk towards you and you can tell he’s going to call Terezi out, so you catch his eye and make a hand motion across your throat. He stops and refrains from confronting the two of you but doesn’t go too far away.

You almost bump into Terezi when she stops and holds out her good hand expectantly. You transform and she catches you, standing the scythe up at her side since she can’t hold you in her usual two-handed battle-ready stance.

“Alright, let’s go. Soul Resonance!”

You feel her send her soul energy at you and you send it back, building off eachother just like the first time you tried this. Her soul feels more guarded and less confident than you’ve ever felt it before but you’re not close enough yet to actually figure out why.

Suddenly the energy loop between the two of you misfires and the connection is broken, making Terezi stumble from the kickback. She throws her broken arm out to stabilize herself, but before you can protest she stands tall and grits her teeth. “Again!”

You reluctantly accept her energy again and build it up to where you were before. This time you concentrate harder on the actual energy rather than her feelings so you don’t mess it up again, and you sense her focusing more as well. You feel her mental cue and direct the energy with difficulty into your blade. It grows and vibrates with the power, and Terezi leans the pole against her shoulder to steady it when one hand becomes too little. “Try to keep feeding it, I want to see how far we can push it.”

You think this is a horrible idea, but you try your best anyways, concentrating on keeping the power in the blade and still feeding even more of her soul energy into it. The glowing blade is absolutely massive at this point, but the strain of containing so much energy proves to be too much for you. The energy-borne portion of the blade shatters and Terezi drops you as she’s thrown backwards.

You transform out of weapon form and go to help her up but she waves you off. “Get back in weapon form, we’re trying again.” She gets up on her own, holding her arm more awkwardly than before.

“No way. We already resonated just fine and we’re not doing any more until you’re properly healed.”

“We’ve fallen behind in class too much and we have to be ready for the next attack! I _said_ , get into weapon form!” she growls, her voice rising.

“No.”

“I’m your meister and I’m _ordering_ you to get into weapon form!”

“I am your partner not your freaking object, Terezi!”

“You’re-”

You feel a crackle of psionics and Terezi is thrown back against the wall of the school. You had been yelling so loud you hadn’t even heard him approach.

“What the _hell_ Sollux!” she coughs out as you stare in shock.

The other meister stomps past you furiously and grabs Terezi by the collar of her jacket.

_“It wasn’t your damn fault, Terezi!”_

Whatever you or Terezi thought he was going to say, that wasn’t it. You watch as something in her hardened expression just breaks and all the aggression melts off of her. Sollux hugs her and she crumples into him, sobbing quietly as he paps her head.

Sometimes you can forget that they’re moirails and have been for a long time. You’re amazed at how he knew exactly what was wrong with her without even needing to hear the entire conversation. Even you’re just starting to understand now. He gives you a look and you walk over closer to where he’s holding her.

He speaks to her, and you’ve never heard his voice so soft and non-sarcastic. “You need to stop blaming yourself for everything. The horrorterror would have escaped no matter what you did. We were too late getting there in the first place and there was nothing we could have done. Thanks to you though, we were able to save two lives. You’re an amazingly powerful and intelligent meister and you have nothing to prove to the rest of us. None of us think badly of you for what happened, alright?”

She nods half-heartedly into his shoulder and he paps her again, then looks over at you. “And KK especially doesn’t blame you in the least for what happened to him. He thinks the world of you.”

You blink in surprise. “Yeah. Yeah of course.”

Terezi sniffs and pulls away from him, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry for being a douche, Karkat,” she says quietly, not turning to you. “I was angry at myself, not at you.”

Sollux snorts and pushes her over to you. You take the hint and hug her too, and after a moment’s hesitation she relaxes in your arms. Sollux walks back over to his weapons with a wave and a “You’re welcome.”

Terezi sighs sadly into your jacket and you try to smile at her. “Want to finish that movie with me? I’ll put extra effort into training once you’re better and try not to be as much of a fat lazy ass.”

She laughs and nods and you pull her back with you in the direction of the hive. “Thanks Karkat,” she grins and you grunt mildly in response. Her grin turns more mischievous. “I lied though, you know. Your ass is actually pretty nice.”

You walk faster in the hopes that she won’t smell the hints of red on your face.

 

 

It’s a few weeks later and Kanaya has deemed Terezi to be healthy again, and that means training starts again on overtime. As the three best meisters in your sweep and with the experience of working as a team previously, Terezi, Sollux, and Gamzee had been chosen to receive advanced training in multiple-partner combat. This was usually taught in students’ second sweep at the Academy, but the situation had become too dire and reinforcements were in short supply.

Kanaya herself had been forced to do the teaching alongside her shifts in the health unit, as staff were less and less available.

You transform for Terezi and she slices up a few practice dummies to try to get used to her scythe-wielding style again after so long without practice. Kanaya watches her critically, occasionally giving tips on how better to make every swing count and correcting slips in her form. After a while she asks Sollux to join her with his weapons. To no one’s surprise, they work exceptionally well together and play off of eachother’s fighting styles magnificently.

Then she asks Gamzee to join them.

Gamzee doesn’t have a ‘style’ so much as a ‘target.’ He is incredibly fast and deals incredibly strong blows, so that whenever Kanaya shouts ‘go,’ the practice dummy is decapitated in less than a second. This of course means his defense and teamwork skills are lacking and would not be able to contribute much against an opponent that could not be beaten in one or two blows.

“Gamzee,” Kanaya sighs, “try to fight the dummy without destroying it. Work with your team, protect them and let them protect you. Open them up for strategic blows.” She comes over to try and position him properly. “Here, look. You’re tall and strong, and Terezi fights mostly with her legs and needs more power behind her scythe blows. If you fold your hands like this and let her jump off you while throwing her up, she could get the height she needs to kick a taller opponent or use that momentum to hit harder with her scythe. The two of them can also work as distractions for you, making the enemy focus on them while you use your speed to hit weak points. Now try again, and this time try to keep the dummy intact.”

After much more correction from Kanaya and, you think, lot of mental persuasion from Tavros, Gamzee starts to get the hang of working with the other two. You can feel Terezi struggling a little too, trying to include a third person in the equation when she and Sollux are already so proficient together. The seven of you are made to work past usual school hours until you can last a full 30 minutes against a practice dummy on the hard level without destroying it or letting it land a single blow on any member of the team.

Kanaya finally dismisses you and you collapse on the grass beside Terezi, groaning and stretching out the stiffness from being in weapon form for so long. Kanaya stands over you and smiles. “Great work today, all of you. Make sure you’re rested and ready for tomorrow though, since now we start the really ‘advanced’ part of your advanced training. Tomorrow you will be resonating your souls not just with your partner, but with your entire team.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I haven't updated this in forever guys term 2 was a killer for me

Gamzee was an hour late for Kanaya's extra class. This wouldn't really have been such a big deal except that Tavros had no idea where he had gone to either. He had shown up on time without his meister, which was surprising even in itself with how inseparable they usually were. Though this was mostly because Gamzee tended to get into a lot of trouble without Tavros to watch him. He was on the verge of a worry-induced panic attack when the highblood had finally wandered towards them across the field, appearing unharmed and no more disheveled than usual.

You sit on the grass watching Tavros roll over to greet him, trying to enjoy your little break and ignore Terezi's annoyance at the late start of the lesson. You've been picking up on a lot more of her feelings lately, even when you're not in weapon form. A sudden twinge of suspicion from her makes you pay attention a bit more though, and you look over just quickly enough to catch the odd thing you think your meister sensed.

As he approached, Gamzee's movements were precise and fluid, his stature tall and his eyes focused. You had only ever seen him that way when he was... well, when he was about to kill something, but never without being linked to Tavros. As soon as Kanaya walked up to him asking him where he had been however, Gamzee returned to his usual slouch and dopey grin.

"Aww sorry Teach, I was chillin' with a friend and the time all up and got away from me."

"What friend?" Tavros asked, obviously confused. Gamzee just shrugged.

Kanaya pursed her lips. "Well, see that it doesn't happen again, Mr. Makara. Now line up beside your teammates if you please."

You push yourself to your feet and transform for Terezi to take.

"Now, meisters, I want you to resonate souls with your partner, but not build up energy for an attack. Connect your souls intimately without using soul energy as a conduit. For this exercise we are not trying to increase your attack power, but your efficiency. The seven of you will be attempting to connect by your souls just as regular meister and weapon partners do, so that you will be aware of your entire team's thoughts. This will be incredibly useful in battle, as you will be able to attack a foe with no risk of injuring your teammates and they will immediately become aware of any plans of attack or problems that arise without having to communicate verbally.

"It is also incredibly difficult to accomplish, as every individual must put their trust in every other member of their team and be willing to open their souls. You must also exercise a large amount of discipline on your own mind. Team resonance can become too overwhelming very quickly with so many minds communicating together, and you must make sure to keep yourself guarded enough so that only your immediate thoughts are shared, and not your feelings or memories. Too much information at once from multiple sources will be too confusing for team resonance to provide it's intended efficiency.

"Does everyone understand?" Kanaya finishes her introduction and signals to begin when the meisters nod.

Terezi takes a calming breath and you feel her soul reach for yours. The initial connection comes easily, but what comes after is more difficult. Terezi tries to open her soul fully to you, but it's harder to achieve true resonance without the energy to carry you closer. Terezi lets out a small snort of frustration and sits down on the grass, lying your scythe form across her lap and putting both hands flat on your blade. You feel her block out everything else and try to think only of you. She sifts through memories that the two of you share, inviting you to add your side of the same experience in an effort to match up your thoughts.

At first it's just your various battles and training sessions, and then it moves on to the little things she seems to remember the most; your first conversation, the movie you watched together, that one night before your first exam that she spent hours helping you cram, that time you fell asleep in class and she took the liberty of drawing all over your face and didn't stop cackling for the entire rest of the day, the one hot night when the seven of you took a swim in the Empress' lake, the various times the two of you have woken up in the health unit to the other waiting at your side, your dance at the formal, sitting together and reading to her out loud from the library books that she wasn't allowed to lick, the way you hugged her yesterday...

You suddenly realise that you've been resonating. You open your eyes and she sees what you see, and when she breathes in you smell what she smells. The change is disconcerting, though not quite as bad as the first time. You are now a single unit. Terezi's legs move to stand and she nods to Kanaya. It looks like Sollux and his weapons are already resonating, while Gamzee and Tavros are still working on it. Kanaya tells you to attempt a connection with Sollux and his team.

The two of you turn and focus your attention on the goldblood. Using Terezi's soul perception ability, you can sense the location of his soul and the way it is intimately connected with Aradia and Feferi's. With the same thought, the two of you extend an invitation to them. You're a little nervous, but Terezi's confidence in connecting with her moirail eases any lingering distrust you had felt. Sollux quickly and easily connects to your meister, and by extension you, and suddenly you think you can hear a few of his thoughts, with some jumbled in from his two weapons, but it comes in such a rush that it's mostly intelligible. Terezi and Sollux are used to this, but quickly realise that their weapons are not and try to correct this. They reign themselves in until all you can feel of Sollux is his location.

 _Testing, one two three. Can you guys hear me?_ Sollux's voice says in your head, though his mouth doesn't move. He even thinks in a lisp. What a nerd.

 _I heard that, asshole._ Oops.

Terezi giggles and gives a thumbs up to Kanaya. She sets the training dummy on you, and for a while you fight until you get used to the feeling of the connection and Terezi and Sollux's movements match up perfectly. You hear them constantly chattering at eachother, suggesting what moves to make next to be most effective. You concentrate on just listening to Sollux's presence and movements, trying to learn the way he fights like you learned Terezi's, so that next time you can offer your own suggestions when needed.

Gamzee and Tavros finally achieve resonance, and the rest of you stop and take your positions in front of him. You can feel uneasiness from all parties within your team, either from suspicion of him or reluctance to let someone as strange and scatterbrained as Gamzee into your mind. Sollux recalls the memory of him taking down the rogue lusus in your first fight together, reminding all of you of the fact that he is a powerful ally. As one it seems, the five of you take a breath and extend an invitation to him.

He smiles at you cheerily and you see, Tavros guiding it mostly, his soul reach out to yours. The instant his soul connects you get a flash of something overwhelming and every resonance link is immediately broken, even yours to Terezi. The sudden silence leaves you dazed for a moment, until you feel Terezi's presence once again and reestablish your connection, though not your resonance.

Kanaya purses her lips, looking not surprised in the least. "This is to be expected for your first attempt. Your teams were only able to connect the first time due to Sollux and Terezi's souls already being familiar with eachother. Continue practicing. This will be a good opportunity for decreasing the time it takes to establish resonance between partners. In battle, you will not have the luxury of time to sit and funnel out distractions."

The next few hours are spent sitting in a circle together, trying to make various different connections. Your collective progress increases in the beginning, and then starts slowly getting worse as weapon stiffness starts to set in and Terezi's frustration at not being able to connect with Gamzee drives her to a breaking point.

"Kanaya, can we just get a different team member? This isn't working at all," she says with the hint of an annoyed growl. Gamzee's grin fades a bit and Sollux elbows her.

"Mr. Makara is the most physically powerful member of your team, Miss Pyrope, and if you remember, it is he that has contributed the most to your victories. He may function differently than you and your moirail, but his differences are exactly what makes him valuable. Learning to work with him is not optional."

You feel your meister's frustration flare into anger and try to reign her back in, to no avail.

"I'm sure there are multiple other students that are just as strong as he is, without the side effect of being a lazy scatterbrained drugged-up idiot!"

You see Gamzee's grip on his weapon tighten and his eyes narrow to slits. "At least I'm the idiot that can actually keep his partner and team safe," he hisses.

Terezi stiffens. Sollux and Kanaya stare at him in shock. You had never hear Gamzee say anything so malicious in the entire time you've known him, and worded in just the right way to make Terezi hurt too. You feel her anger dissipate all at one as she realises she _had_ been the one to endanger the team the most and you rush to send her your feelings of admiration and confidence in her over your link before she shuts herself down like before.

Tavros transforms back out of his weapon form and forces Gamzee's face over to look him in the eye. "What's going on? Are you okay?" he asks seriously. Gamzee pulls away from him and stands without another word, walking back over to the Academy and past it, away from them.

The rest of you stare after him until he disappears from sight, Tavros calling after him but unable to follow without his chair. He doesn't look back.

You assume he just got frustrated along with everyone else and he'll be back tomorrow, but Gamzee never returns to the Academy again.


	13. Chapter 13

In the next week things just continue to get worse. Classes and training almost entirely stop at the Academy, as most of the highblood teachers start having violent episodes just as the lowblood ones become more dazed and tired. The ones that _are_ partnered and able to hold it together are sent off to fight and keep absolute chaos from erupting entirely.

Kanaya is one of the few left and she continues to work to train you, as well as a few other students that were left, now focusing mostly on how to survive. She separates partners, taking the meisters with her to see if she is able to teach them how to attack with their soul force directly like her. Another teacher works with you and the other weapons, trying to show you how to fight without your meisters.

_That’s all well and good for the tall muscular brownblood with enormous sharpened horns who can also turn both his arms into blades_ , you think. You’ve been relying on Terezi in fights for so long now that to say you’re rusty would be an understatement. In sparring it’s all you can do to use your transformed arm as a shield. More than that, it just feels _wrong_ now, fighting without being connected to Terezi. It frightens you, how big a part of your life, how big a part of your _soul_ she is. You’ve known her for just over half a sweep now, and still she has become utterly essential to you.

All the more reason to learn this though. If she is ever incapacitated, you can’t sit there and be useless again, unable to protect her.

You interact very little in the next week, determined as you are to become the best in your weapon class. One of the days, as you’re walking back to the hive, she comments with a bit of a laugh on how she’s never seen you focus so hard in a class before.

"I have to get good at fighting on my own so I don’t have to rely on you all the time," you respond with conviction.

She blinks at you. “Oh.”

"What?" There’s something in her voice that you can’t exactly place, but you’ve been with her long enough to know that there’s _something_.

"Nothing, I’m just glad you’re taking initiative."

You raise an eyebrow and hold out your hand to her. She hesitates a few steps, then takes it with a resigned sigh. You’ve been practicing hard for the past month, and now you’re able to resonate your souls almost immediately as long as you’re touching. Recently you’ve been using this to communicate things that aren’t as easily explained in words.

You make the connection and she reluctantly opens up to you. The rational part of her is actually proud that you’re doing so well, but the more insecure part of her is worried that if you get really good at it you’ll end up like Kanaya, never needing a partner to fight. Not needing _her_ , even though, she adds, she knows it’s selfish.

You squeeze her hand and smile a little. “Hey, it’s not like that at all, okay? I just want to be able to keep us safe if you get knocked unconscious again. And even if I do manage to be capable on my own, I’m still gong to want to be your partner. I do actually…” you hesitate and take a breath, “… like being your weapon a lot.”

She smiles and squeezes your hand back, walking a little closer until you reach the hive.

But it’s at that moment that an enormous crash echoes through the entire forest. You both whip around and sprint back in the direction of the Academy as the ground starts to shake.

“ _Karkat_ ,” Terezi says breathlessly as she pulls ahead of you. “ _It’s there._ It was concealing itself until just now with Soul-Protect magic, but I can feel it now, even at this distance.”

You try to keep yourself from panicking and steel up for a fight, but by the time you get to the edge of the training field in sight of the academy, it’s already too late. The building, along with the Peixes mansion, is nothing but rubble.

You stop short in shock but Terezi grabs your hand and pulls you along to keep running. You try not to look as you pass by trolls laying motionless near brightly coloured splatter, but you start feeling sick anyways. Terezi orders you into weapon form and you gratefully comply. The horrorterror begins its retreat into the sea as your meister uses her Soul Sight to search the rubble for survivors. Your blade slices easily through stone and wood, letting her get close enough to pull people free.

You hear a faint shout and Terezi’s head snaps up, immediately recognising it as Sollux. She runs quickly over to the wreckage of the Peixes mansion and finds him trying in vain to lift and entire wall of the hive with his psionics. She grabs his face an gives him a pap to stop him before he strains himself damagingly, and then rushes to slice through the section of wall. Feferi and Aradia help each other up and Sollux stumbles forward to hug them both tightly.

 

 

Kanaya limps over from the other end of the building, waving at you urgently. “You five! Come quickly!” She leads you towards the shore and to one of the few intact ships.

"Kanaya…?" Terezi asks worriedly as she boards.

"I’m sorry to ask this of you, but the creature’s Soul-Protect is off right now, and this might be the only chance we’ll have to follow and find it before it’s to late for everyone," she says quickly as she releases the moored rope.

Sollux looks at Terezi and nods. “It’s alright Kanaya, we’re with you.”

"Wait!!" a small voice calls and a girl leaps onto the ship, slightly battered and breathing heavy. "I want to help too!"

Kanaya smiles with relief and pushes off, unfurling the sails. “Thank-you Nepeta. You’ll be a big help, especially if you’re compatible in resonance with the others.”

Nepeta catches her breath and poses in a fighting stance. “No problem! I have my own score to settle and I’m not about to be purrsessed again!” She smiles at Terezi, “Plus, I owe you guys. Equius too.”

Her weapon transforms, nodding to you and then going to help Kanaya with their ship. You all follow her instructions to get ready for fast travel, Terezi standing at the bow to make sure you’re going in the right direction.

Up in the rigging, you nudge Sollux and point off the side of the ship. “Hey, isn’t that the island where…”

He cuts you off with a quick hiss. “Well _shut up_ and maybe he won’t hear us passing by, moron.”

"Oi! Hey you!"

Sollux slowly covers his face in horror. Kanaya moves to the railing to look over it despite your best efforts to frantically gesture to her to ignore him.

"Hey miss, are ye off chasin’ that squidbeast which just passed by?"

She looks down at the seatroll swimming alongside the ship with interest as you and Sollux try desperately to climb back down to the deck. “Yes, we are.”

"Mind if I tag along? Never did hear of one that big since the old tales of the ancestors and this smells like one hell of a story about to start here."

"Well I don’t see why not." She throws a rope down for him just a second before the two of you all but tackle her to the deck to try and stop her.

The two of you groan loudly as Eridan the legendary weapon climbs onto your ship and wrings out his gaudy cape. He spots you and stands up straighter, snarling _"Why you two disrespectful…"_

He stops mid-insult as he gazes past you with a strange expression on his face. Sollux looks behind himself and groans even more loudly. His weapons had come over to see what all the commotion was about.

Eridan elbows past you and kneels dramatically in front of Feferi. “Honorable princess, never have I seen beauty until this day.” He takes her hand and kisses it lightly. “Please, as you are clearly in charge here, permit me to join you on your quest.”

She only looks confusedly around at everyone involved. “Uh…”

"Don’t you touch her, you pretentious windbag!" You grab Sollux’s arm again to keep him from leaping at the other weapon.

"Mind your business, disgusting pissblood!"

"Hey! That’s my meister you’re carping to!" Feferi angrily crosses her arms.

Eridan looks between the two of them as Sollux smirks back, and you see his eye twitch angrily. “I… apologise, princess,” he manages through gritted teeth. “Though I don’t understand why you would choose to work under such _filth_ -“

"Uh-uh. You can come along, but only if you glubbing behave yourself!"

"No FF don’t-" Sollux starts, but is silenced with an aggressively raised eyebrow.

At Feferi’s insistence Eridan takes a seat near the bow to watch moodily and Sollux returns to his work untangling the rigging.

Terezi appears over your shoulder. “What the hell was that all about?” You just sigh and promise to tell her explain it later.

 

 

Once you’ve been steadily sailing for a few hours without incident, Kanaya suggests your new team of seven attempt resonance just to practice. Once Nepeta and Equius are caught up on the advanced soul theory of it all, they lock in their resonance with the rest of you seamlessly after just a few tries. You sit in a circle for a while, just trying to get used to eachother’s minds. Personally you find Equius’ mind the strangest when you try pushing for a stronger connection, and vow never to try that again. You do feel an intense amout of his loyalty to his meister though, and that keeps him strongly connected to the rest of the group through her.

Nepeta’s mind connects to yours maybe a little too eagerly and you try to be a bit more cautious with her, but you think you might be able to make a pretty good friend there. Terezi even moreso, it seems, since you start to overhear an excited pseudo mental conversation between the two of them, something involving your meister pretending to be a dragon.

Suddenly Sollux and Terezi break connection with the rest of you at the same time, looking towards the front of the ship.

"Everyone prepare yourselves. I believe we are here," Kanaya calls over you as the last of your team resonance fizzles out.

You follow your meister’s gaze and might have laughed if there wasn’t such a high chance you could die in there. A large rocky island sits in the eerily still water in a small mist cloud comprised entirely of sheer cliffs, except for the series of dark openings in the edge right in front of you. Openings which just happen to be in the shape of a weathered old skull.

The skull’s ‘mouth’ extends into the water, big enough for your ship to sail through. On one of its protruding teeth however, stands Gamzee Makara.


End file.
